It's Monday, and I was away for the weekend. Now you're thinking either one of two things, 'oh that's fun, a weekend away!' or 'oh, yeah now you have all the catching up to do'. Whatever you're thinking, you're right.

My husband and I went away for the weekend to see some good friends without our kids, it was great! We left the kiddos with my mom so when we got back Sunday night I had to start all the laundry, figure out school lunches for the week, ignore the fact we'll have to eat dinner and need groceries, and on and on.

I have a friend who doesn't have kids yet, and when I'm having a hard 'mom season', lots of attitudes and running around and stress, she's always encouraging me to take a solo vacation, go to a resort or a spa, just take a week away. And I'm not saying those things wouldn't be awesome, but the mom math works differently. We don't just calculate how much something costs in financial dollars, simply money in/money out budget. We have to calculate ENERGY, emotional energy, physical energy, and anxious energy. I don't know about you, and I hope you are blessed with a more laissez-faire attitude than me, but if I'm leaving my kids for more than 24 hours I'm already thinking about what I would be coming back to, and sometimes rocking the boat and giving up the routine to come back and have to rebuild all the systems just doesn't feel worth it.

The cost of treating ourselves is not often worth the squeeze. Is that a saying? Now I wrote a couple of different things about unwinding and finding those little breaks in our days, and yeah that is all important, but what I'm talking about now is a little different, I think.

It's the idea that if we did, or when we do, get away for the weekend or take a real vacation, when we get back, all the fun we had is completely negated by the piles of laundry, and the empty kitchen shelves, and the chaos of our kids off of their schedule. I guess what I'm trying to figure out in real-time right here is how we reconcile this. How to lessen the fallout?

There's a part of me that always blames the pandemic. For almost 3 years I only stayed at my house so now when I do anything 'big' it feels HUGE, so it's just my perception, and that might be true, but perception is still the reality I have to deal with, right?

The idea that 'I need a vacation from my vacation!'. It's real, we're tired and out of our own routines, and then having to jump back into whatever we're supposed to do feels overwhelming. When I was homeschooling my kiddos anytime we went somewhere for a long weekend I always took the day after we got back off from school, it just wasn't worth it, the kids needed to shake it out, and no one learns anything when you're grouchy the whole day.

So is that it? Planning for the extra space. And I know lots of full-time working moms, and I did this too, after a big vacation, taking the day off from the 9-5 so you could reset in the home.

Then the magic is in the space, the liminal area between your time away ending and returning to the real world. Just seeing the mess, accepting it, knowing it'll be there, and assigning it a better/different time to be dealt with.

What really sucks for all of us moms is that we have to constantly prep for ourselves. If we don't make the backup plan, no one else will and then we are stuck with the fallout and not having that backup plan, and then we beat ourselves up and that just isn't fair either! Sorry if this is so negative, I am honestly working through all of this as I type.

But here's where I'm coming out at the other end. I have the practice of planning out the worst possible day, we can talk about that later. But maybe, we also make a plan, a magical recipe that helps us come down from and prevent the post vaca blues. The stuff that we have in place so when we get back from the weekend we already know someone (our past selves) prepped for us so we don't have to get all wound up.

The magic in this is DIVINATION, predicting the future circumstances and knowing what you'll need to get through it unscathed. So what would be in this plan?

  • Grabbing some Lunchables (or ingredients for DIY Lunchables) hidded in your fridge for lunches or dinners when you return.
  • Having backup paper plates and plastic wear, just in case all the dishes are dirty.
  • Having a 'hard week' meal plan and pre-made grocery list, one that is typed and laminated so you can just grab it. Maybe you even have this grocery list saved in instacart so you don't even have to think about that. OR before your leave for the week sign up for a meal delivery system to be delivered when you get back so you have even less work, YES!!
  • I think when I'm doing laundry, and packing before I head out of town, MAYBE I would set aside some clothes and hide them in a closet for when I get back so if anyone yells, 'I don't have anything to wear!' there is a secret stash, instead of a panic attack about needing to do laundry right away.

I'm not sure what else, but let me know what would be helpful for you, or some tricks you already have in place.