Alone Time

I will be resuming my regular kid-load next week, after a 6 week, doctor-ordered 'work slowdown'. I have still tended my 4 year olds and older - my independent crowd. But I haven't changed a diaper, lifted a child, pushed a stroller, put a child down for a nap or helped feed a child for .. 40 days.

During those 40 days, I have had 9 days where I was completely and totally alone for the 6 hours of the day that the kids were in school. I had 8 afternoons where I was completely and totally alone for the 2 hours the 4 year olds were in preschool. I was alone ... for the first time in what feels like forever.

Being a daycare provider provides precious few opportunities like these. With the varying ages and stages of children, the varying routines of my families and the unexpected changes to those routines (that happen so regularly, they shouldn't be unexpected ... but they always are), there is really no time that I can call my own. 10 1/2 hours of my day are spent working around the schedules of the families in my care. I like to sleep 8 hours ... and in the 5 1/2 hours that are left in my day, I have to squeeze in meals, errands and whatever may need to be done in a day.

Alone-time is a luxury in my world. This post-surgery recovery time has truly been a gift. Quiet. Alone. Time. Time to run an errand ... time to tend to work that I would normally squeeze into my after-supper hours ... time to watch Oprah in the afternoon ... time to doze off ... time to think my own thoughts ... Time.

I feel mentally rejuvenated. My daycare hours have been low-stress these past 6 weeks. It has refuelled me in a way that a regularly scheduled holiday never has. Even during my holidays, I seem to live life in warp-speed trying to squeeze in things that I don't have the time for, in my regularly scheduled life.

I have taken a years leave of absence from my Saturday employment in the hopes that I can hold onto a few hours of down-time, once things get back to their regular hectic pace in my daycare world.

It is my hope to retain of some of this calmness once things pick up around here next week. I think that everyone needs some quiet alone-time. I can especially empathize with those who work in the daycare world, but I believe that absolutely everyone, in every walk of life needs that time alone to rejuvenate themselves for the demands of their every-day life.

This is probably why I am so strict in enforcing 'quiet time' when my house is full of kids. It may not be quite the same as being alone ... but it is at least time to let the world around you be quiet, so that you can rejuvenate a small part of your being.