why Friday is good

I got the girls in bed before 8:55 -- even the youngest at the same time as the others, since we had a few places to go* which meant she napped less today. (First Girl loves it when Third Girl is there and doesn't get to (need to) stay up later.) It's me-time, quiet except for some music from The Piano Guys.

I wonder if a lot of couples with kids like Fridays because that is their date night. Every few weeks my husband and I have a date, but it's on Wednesday or Saturday because of his work schedule (which is fine). For me, Friday is good because it's almost Saturday and Sunday, when he doesn't have to work at all. Unless it's drill. This weekend follows a drill weekend, so when he arrived home after 9:30 p.m. it was the end of a 12-day "work week" that began on Monday, March 4th. He will be so happy to sleep in. Pretty much every day when he gets home he says that he is really tired.

Why do I feel like making this public and not just a journal entry? I guess probably most of my blog readers know us personally, which means they care. Anyway, I was thinking last night about writing what a typical Thursday is like for my family right now. How about if I let y'all know what all the weekdays are like. 

I wrote in a post before that my husband works about fifty hours a week or more. The hard thing is that it's not five ten-hour days. A typical Thursday is the same as a typical Tuesday. Both evenings he works the part time job. It starts an hour and a half after the full time job ends. So on those days he leaves by 6:30 in the morning, before our kids are awake, and usually is back by 9 or 9:30, when they are already asleep. That's 15 hours away from the house. We have less than two hours together, and then he has to go to sleep. Monday he has the full time job from 1 p.m. to close so he has even less free time at night because the other days it begins at 7 a.m. We love Wednesday, and Friday he is off at 1 p.m. instead of 4 (the other days are a little more than 8 hours, so Friday is a shorter day).

Yep, I'm complaining a little here. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for the time that I do get to spend with him during the week. I'm grateful that he's not deployed, and that he does what he needs to do to meet all our expenses and let me be a mom. This situation is doable but we're both getting sick of it and pray that he will get a higher-paying full time job -- career -- very soon. These hours are tiring for both of us. I would like the kids to be able to see their dad every day. Our current lease ends the end of July, so we hope to move by then into a place that at least has a third bedroom. A month ago he applied for a job that he really wants, with the same company that interviewed him for a manager trainee position last year. I keep thinking that any day now he will get a phone call or email about it. Online, the status says they are still reviewing his application. The job is about 50 minutes north of here.

I'm not sure how to end this. Oh, I do have other family news. Good news. First Girl was chosen to be in a Spanish dual immersion program starting this fall! So she will be in it, at a different nearby elementary school, if we don't move too far away (but of course, we do want to move too far away, and maybe she can transfer to a program there).

____

* Dropped off First Girl at school for short day, went to the grocery store, back to the school where there was a short PTA meeting, home for late lunch and putting away groceries and cleaning up the kitchen and having a little bit of time with Daddy (although he started a nap), to the park for a play date with 5 other moms who are in our ward.