Guest blog post by: Shannon Day
We parents are more than familiar with the Evening Cyclone. It strikes weekdays between the hours of 4:00 and 8:00 pm. I’m not just talking about the mess. I’ m referring to the routine involved in those hectic hours leading up to bedtime. I’m talking about the endless flow of food preparation, cleaning up, followed by homework, varying activities and more cleaning up. Then, bath time and the sorting out of everybody’s things. Then there is, of course, the task of keeping the peace between siblings (insert frazzled expression).
I don’t know about you, but no matter how prepared I am, the sheer force of the Evening Cyclone, and the surprises that regularly pop up within it, render me useless by 9pm. At which point, I rip open a Dairy Milk and plant myself on the couch.
Yet sometimes my chocolate + couch time seems so far away…
One Tuesday, amidst a fairly typical, yet slow moving, cyclone, I became dauntingly aware that a melt down was in the works. It was my own, this time, and it was brewing at a rapid pace. The kids were messily brushing their teeth. I was sorting the dirty laundry into piles- too much laundry!
My patience was teetering on a very, very fine line.
I took a few deep breaths, willing my patience to hold out.
Twenty minutes more.
I can do this…
Then my youngest decides (for no apparent reason) to scratch her sister who does not retaliate but instead screeches the most ear piercing, window breaking, instant headache inducing shriek…
“Bedtime!” I announce.
Insanity is grasping at my heels as I begin shuffling them all toward their rooms.
And then, the front door opens. Hubby is home from work. Up the stairs he comes.
This is my cue.
“I’m Outta here,” I say, in a matter of fact manner.
Hubby’s brow furrows.
I turn and walk away, peeling my clothes off layer by layer as I go. I don’t look back but I’m pretty sure they’re watching me. I open the door, turn on the water and step into the shower. The perplexed look on my hubby’s face is the last thing I see and then steam surrounds me. For that moment and the six to follow, I am all alone in Tahiti.
I immerge-a new woman, throw on my robe and I’m ready for story time.
Seven Minutes in Tahiti for me, is a simple shower. Sometimes sending an SOS text to a fellow mom (who’ll text back a photo of her son, missing his bangs or a confession that she’s just been hiding out in a secret place eating ice cream) does the trick. Fend off your Mommy Meltdown with your own Seven Minutes in Tahiti.
You can read more from Shannon at her blog: Martinis and Motherhood
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