Sundays are one of the hardest days of the week for me. Sundays are my office days and they are my Mondays. I open on Sundays. I have to be at the office at 7:50am and my drive is at least 30 minutes, if there is minimal traffic. This means I have to be up around 6am if I want to make sure I have everything I need and I am ready to go. I almost never make it on time because I am also a slave to my IBS, which I have no control over and complications can hit at any time with no warning.

I must insert a topic that seems unrelated here before I return to my Sunday routine. My husband let me do all the research on babies and we both decided we would do what works for us and what felt right. If the doctors didn’t say it was bad and studies didn’t say it was bad and we wanted to, that was what we were doing. We have been putting our kids to bed since they were born by holding their hands until they fell asleep or until we felt they were ok by themselves. For each child that was different. The plan was to follow the recommendations to be as safe as possible. Isabella was supposed to be in our room with us until she was a year old and then we would transition her into her own room. We didn’t plan on COVID. At her first birthday, my husband was working overnights more than days due to the change in staffing at his job because of the pandemic and I was 5 months pregnant and miserable and I did not have the energy to put my 1 year old to sleep in her room by herself and hear her crying while hormonal myself and get up in the morning and work my 14 hour shifts–also a product of the pandemic. So she stayed in our room up until Keilani was born and it was no longer feasible. Javier had some paternity leave and was able to put Isabella to sleep in her room while I focused on Keilani. But he stayed with her until she fell asleep and Keilani was of course constantly in our company. By the time Javier had to go back to work, way too early in my opinion, Isabella still needed someone to put her to sleep and stay with her. So thankful my mom has been here the whole time to help us. She would put Isabella to sleep while I still focused on Keilani. I still feel like I missed out on so much with Isabella having to focus on another baby so close together. I wouldn’t change what we did, but that was hard. Meanwhile, we kept Keilani in our room with us until she was 1 as well, and then we moved her into the room with Isabella. That meant that I put them both to sleep together and stayed with them both until they fell asleep. That pattern has never changed. Should I try to get them to fall asleep on their own? Probably. Will I ever regret not doing so? No, because one day they will not demand that I hold their hands until they fall asleep and I will miss it so much. This time goes by so fast, and I can’t get it back. So while it’s hard and tiring, I still hold my babies’ hands every night while they fall asleep. Also, while I won’t get into the whys because that could be a whole other blog post, my babies fall asleep around 10pm every night. No, I can’t get them to sleep any earlier. I tried.

Moving back to Sundays. So Saturday night I have now gone to sleep around 11pm because I can’t get my kids to sleep any sooner than 10pm and I have to get myself to sleep in my own bed now. And Keilani ALWAYS comes to our room at 2am. And then I’m up for a bit trying to get back to sleep. No we can’t get her to go back to sleep in her room. We’ve tried. A lot. The lost sleep is not worth the attitudes we all get the next day. Yes we have been persistent. You can keep asking me all the questions. I promise I have all the answers as to why. So let’s be optimistic and say I get 5 hours of sleep every Saturday. Does my husband sometimes put them to sleep? Absolutely. We tag team. And I am now heading to the office to work. For a job that I do at home all the other days of the week. I’m sorry, but there is no argument that you will ever give me that will make sense on why I must do my job at the office once a week. Yes, it is nice to see my coworkers in person once a week; I am very lucky to like every single one of them, and I am not saying that just because they might see this, but I truly enjoy them. But honestly, the effort it takes to have to get up an hour earlier and lose that hour of sleep I really need, drive 30 minutes there and 45 minutes back, because when I get off of work that is what the traffic looks like, and spend that gas money I don’t have, plus lose those 75 minutes of commute time that I could be spending with my family, is all super stressful and super frustrating. On top of which, I swear my computer never works the same at the office as it does at my house. There is always something wrong with it. And then the noise in the office is very distracting for my ADHD. But I do what I am told, even if I grumble about it every week. It’s only once a week. And usually someone brings donuts and I joke with my coworkers and probably annoy them to death because I never stop talking. I am very opinionated and I am not afraid to overshare even if it’s a bad idea and I regret it later. That comes from disliking silence.

That being said, I love my job and I love opening shifts and I love that when I walk through the door at the end of the day my daughters run up to me and say mommy you’re here! and it seems to be the most exciting part of their day. On my drive home, I call my aunt and talk to her for the entire drive about my day and try to keep myself calm while the drivers around me are all crazy. I think about how in about 2 hours my husband will most likely be cooking dinner for me, because he is amazing like that. And I think about how if I ask him to put the girls to bed that night he will because I am exhausted and I just want to sleep. And then I have an internal struggle because I know I need sleep, but I also really want to hold my babies’ hands while they fall asleep. I hope when they are 20 and 30 there will still be nights where they will want to hold my hand to fall asleep, just every once in a while, maybe when they catch a cold or are on vacation with me or something. Or are 40 and feeling nostalgic with their own kids and know how I feel all of a sudden.

But Sundays are still hard for me. I am grateful for supportive people in my life.