The title of this blog - Eternal Wednesday - I owe to my very dear friend Luke. He gave a name to a phenomenon that occurs in the lives of stay-at-home Moms with small children. Previously, I had referred to this phenomenon by the relatively uninspired phrase "not knowing what the hell day it is."
When one doesn't work (for money), as I don't, and when one has small children, especially children who are not yet school-age, it isn't uncommon to not know what day of the week it is. For me, this problem is exacerbated when Justin is traveling - either deployed or on a training trip.
These days, I do manage to keep track of what day it is, most of the time: If Justin is home, this means it is a weekend, though I am thrown off by three-day national holiday weekends. On Thursdays, I have to remember to pick the two big boys up at 1:10. If it's Monday through Thursday, Isaiah is going to swim practice. Sunday is Farmer's Market day, Monday, I watch Dr. House, and Saturday, I could get my shit together and go to a dance class, etc.
Back in the early days of my marriage, the early days of motherhood, it was not uncommon for me to suffer quite frequently from Eternal Wednesday. That was back when we lived under the incoming flight path, Isaiah was a baby, and Justin was deployed to Guam. We had one car and no parking spot. It was all street parking, most of it metered. If I succeeded at finding a good spot - close to the apartment, not metered - I would just stay in the house until I absolutely needed to leave.
More than a few times, I packed small Isaiah into the old Honda - after three, four days of being holed up in the apartment - for a trip to the grocery store or Target or down to the beach in Coronado. I'd be stuck in traffic or playing Bumper Carts with people at Trader Joe's and cussing, "What the hell are all these people doing here?!" before realizing, "Oh. It's Saturday."
It wasn't too long ago that I was sitting at this very computer having a phone conversation with Luke. I don't even remember what he asked me, but my answer depended on accurately identifying the current day of the week, which I failed to do correctly. I began to explain to him that when Justin is gone or the kids are on vacation or sometimes for no apparent reason at all, I'm not sure what day it is. Sometimes, I'm waaay off, like two or three days off. Life all bleeds together into one mishmash of bedtimes and laundry, dishes and swim practices. And Luke quipped, "Ha. Right. Like one eternal Wednesday." Or something very close to that...to which I replied, "Hey, that would be a great name for a blog."
Another very dear friend of mine, Laura, recently sent out an email asking friends to vote on which logo they liked best for her own nascent blog, "Music for Good." Having, myself, the technological savvy of a potted plant, I'll be thrilled if I manage to successfully post this first entry on my virgin blog. It's unlikely that I will have a logo of my own anytime soon, but as I told Laura, my eventual logo will be a stick-figure woman - x's for eyes and an XXX bottle in one hand - surrounded by small stick-figure children, speech bubbles filled with scribble lines floating over their heads. Until I have the scratch to hire a graphic designer you'll just have to imagine it.
Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't thank Rachel for getting me here. Thank you, Rachel. :-)
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