It's Quiet...But Not Too Quiet

Today I sent all three boys to summer camp. It's just a day camp, so I'll be picking them all up around four-thirty-ish after a whole seven hours to myself. It's Son #3's first camp experience, so I'll admit I was not only a little nervous leaving him in the hands of the impossibly-young-looking camp counselors (and when exactly did undergraduate students start looking like infants, anyway?), but I also felt a little neglectful as I drove away. Because really, I didn't just sign them up for camp so they could meet new friends, have fun new experiences, and be active instead of rotting their brains in front of the TV or computer or video games, though all of those reasons were part of why I signed them up for two weeks of camp, and why I chose this particular camp.

The truth is, on top of those excellent reasons, and equally important as any or all of them, is that I needed some time to myself this summer. Time not spent refereeing sibling spats. Time not delivering threats over the amount of time Son #1 has glued himself to the Xbox. Time not paying one iota of attention to the volunteer work that absorbed most of my virtually nonexistent free time and mental bandwidth during the last school year. And yes, admitting that feels kind of selfish.

Mind you, feeling selfish about it did not stop me from signing them up with giddy glee several months ago. I'm not interested in sacrificing myself on the altar of maternal martyrdom. There are many inconvenient things that I will do in the interests of my children (driving Son #1 a round-trip of 50 miles once a week so he can go to his social skills/group therapy session comes to mind), but it is better for all of them and me if I'm a happier human.

I've heard many different ways of describing the desirability or necessity of putting yourself first at least some of the time. I personally like the "oxygen mask" analogy--i.e., you put your own oxygen mask on first in the case of emergency, because you aren't much use to your children (or anyone) if you've passed out. A friend of mind uses the term "self-care." Whatever you want to call it, I'm lousy at it. I overschedule myself, delude myself that I'm the only one who can do certain things, put the things that make me happy at the bottom of the list, and say yes to unnecessary obligations that increase my stress level.

This sounds like a pretty bleak picture, but I'm not completely hopeless. There are certain things that I say no to, or say yes to only sparingly. For example, I know that having a noisy houseful of other people's children tends to make me cuckoo-brains, so playdates are planned in advance so I can mentally prepare. I have not signed up to be a room parent at the kids' public school or their religious school in...well, possibly ever now that I think of it. Nothing irks me more than dealing with people who are uninformed and apathetic about their kids' education, and the likelihood of encountering at least one of those sort of folks when you're a room parent is pretty high, given the random nature of the group you have to work with. My blood pressure and I agreed long ago to say "no, thank you" to those opportunities with nary a qualm of conscience. And, of course, I recognized months ago that a completely unstructured summer with me and all three boys under one roof 24/7 would be...less than ideal, shall we say?

What stymies me is how to keep things in balance. A week of manic activity and the associated stress is not balanced out by a warm bubble bath. And yes, it's great to take a stack of books on your annual vacation and plow through them one after another, but that's not so fabulous if that's the first time you've gotten to relax with a book in months. How exactly do I say "enough" and stick to it? How do I take time for the things I like to do, without needing a reason beyond the fact that it makes me happy?

Hell, maybe this is all an elaborate justification for why I'm typing up a blog post right now instead of clearing Son #3's drawers of outgrown clothing. (I'm getting to it, I swear!) But this topic is very much on my mind as I enjoy these quiet hours, knowing that the school year is fast approaching. Am I going to fill up my suddenly free hours with a lot of nonsense, or will I have the self-control to keep some of my time for myself? 

I'd like to think that it will be the latter...because I know that when I do genuinely take some time for myself to work on things that may not be practical but that I love (NaNoWriMo, anyone?), then I'm a much better person to be around. And I think my boys would much rather be picked up by happy-mom-who-springs-for-ice-cream rather than grumpy-mom-who's-stressing-about-the-chores-she-didn't-do-yet, don't you?