...with two spoons...

Mondays, of late, feel like 'weekend recovery' days.
It's a strange twist on what once was.
Part 'return to schedule and, therefore, to function' and part ' restore order after the invasion'. 

Henri's Papa has a big presence and a tendency to overwhelm.  He's brash and impetuous and loud.  Weekends spent with him 'present in quantity' can feel disruptive to our system and to our systems.

(I wonder if other parents feel this when their mostly-absent partner is suddenly around for longer stretches of time.)

His presence, and his parenting, knock us off balance.  The schedule collapses...the adherence to guidelines and timelines disappears.

There's a sense of urgency around time with him.
A need to 'fit it all in', whether it's outings or chores or household projects or...

Weekends are rushed and chaotic...unraveled and exhausting...

...and when Monday dawns, it's time to reset.

Back to the planner and the clock.  Back to 3 square meals plus snacks.  Back to nursing windows, and nap-times.  Back to homeschooling and mami-led learning.  Back to the 'work in progress'.

Back we go, like automatons, on Monday mornings.

And back we slide into whatever unmanaged mess we left of things the week prior.

Mondays are weekend recovery days.

My eldest and I, diving into the deep end and trying to wrangle the work and the chores and the toddler and the life...back into something recognizable and manageable.

Mondays are work...hard work and long hours and hopeless prayers for a nap-time respite that never comes because the schedule was too mangled by the weekend...

Mondays feel endless.

And by the time evening rolls around, and Henri's Papa arrives home from his own Monday...we're all running on empty and snarling at one another.

Mondays are the recovery, from which we sometimes need to recover.

So last night, my eldest and I took ourselves out to dinner...alone...

(We've made routine of that...once a month...a dinner for two...the original team...)

Nothing fancy. My strawberry salad altogether unfancy...full of those damnable chunks of iceberg lettuce (the heart?) that I cut out at home, and sporting 4 limp slices of strawberry.

But, much like us...perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect.

No toddler with his incessant, oppressive need to be the center.

No interruptions or need to pause the natural flow of conversation, in order to explain some insider joke or the historical reference point in the story of us.

Just us.  The originals.

The single mom and single son.

Just us, and the ease of our bond, and the picking up of conversations we'd left off of...

This time is precious to me.

It's a rarity...an endangered species...

It's at risk of being infringed upon...of being rolled over...of being swallowed up...

We sat in our booth, picking over food and picking at conversation threads.

We...consumed...

We...communed...

We...recovered...

Just enough so that when it came time to pay the bill and head back out into the dark, we'd fed ourselves just enough to 'get back to it'.

I love these dinners.  These brief hours where he and I are the way we were.  These falling-backs and leaping-forwards of conversation with a boy turned young man...dreamer turned developer...

I love our ease with one another.  I worked so hard at making it.

I love our friendship.  I built it on purpose.

We laughed over town politics and toddler tempers...oft indistinguishable from one another!

We dreamt a little about future plans and brainstormed workshop ideas.

We unburdened ourselves of those annoyances and grievances and listened to the clarity of the other's perspective...gaining insight and relief.

And when I thought we were done...plates cleared away and settled into silence...

He ordered dessert.

With two spoons.

And borrowed a few minutes more for us both...