College Park Patch: The Weekday Race

This article was originally published on the College Park Patch as part of the weekly column by Gretchen Schock, Parenting on a Tightrope. 

Brownies are in the oven.
I volunteered to bake a snack for 25 people for Teacher Appreciation Week at L’s school. I chopped up leftover mini peanut butter cups, stolen from the kids’ Easter baskets, in order to make the brownies looked a little more “fancy” and less…from a box.
This week has been a complete test of my endurance. I thought training for a triathlon was hard! At work I’m planning a charity event for 200 people and organizing four fundraising walks in three different states. After my hour-long drive home, I’m baking brownies while calling out spelling words over my shoulder to L.
“Dishes- mommy wishes you would wash the dishes," I say, drawn-out so that he can really hear the word "dishes.”
Our weekdays speed by, each one blending into the next, a PTA meeting being the highlight this week. Once the kids are picked up from Aftercare the race begins: walk the dogs, eat dinner, do homework, clean up dinner, get kids in the bath, out of bath, 30 minutes of TV time, read stories, in bed.
And then I collapse.
I’m struggling with finding the balance of spending quality time together as a family day-to-day. Currently I feel as though we are treading water, trying to stay afloat, living for the weekend - and it makes me sad in my heart. I want to be more Buddhist-like and enjoy each moment as it comes. Instead of racing on to the next…looking ahead…checking the calendar…planning out the month… and not seeing what is right in front of me.
I know I’m not alone. I know there are other parents like me in this weekday race.

How do we get out of it? How do we stop and smell the roses without our little piece of the world crashing down around us?