Take a shower

Sleep in

Go grocery shopping (alone)

Workout (alone and because I want to)

Go for a walk around my favourite places

Stop for a coffee anytime I feel like it

Go out to eat and not beg the monster next to me to at least taste the food before saying she don’t like it

Read a book (or more)

Tidy up the house (properly)

Go to the bathroom…and take my time (alone)

Go window shopping because I can

All these activities sound so simple, so mundane and still they are so precious for a mother. Lets face it. Every single mom out there is craving for some me time and she well deserves it.

Stay at home or working mothers; breastfeeding or formula feeding mums… who cares? We are all mums and we are all in desperate need of alone time once in a while. To charge our batteries and find the energy to raise those little monsters we call kids.

It’s been a while since I felt exhausted mentally and physically. Somehow I can’t find motivation for anything and I make huge efforts to keep my toddler happy and active. Every end of the day I literally pass out. I lack energy and can’t find it anywhere. I am trying here but the light at the end of the tunnel seems so so far away.

I am a mum who desperately needs time off. Give me one day. One day to do all the things I want to do. Drink coffee without holding my toddler while saying: “Mummy coffee, Ruby milk” (that’s how I make her have it); grabbing my book while sipping coffee without thinking about laundry, cleaning, places to take my toddler so I can keep her entertained and so on; I want to grab my phone, call a friend and go out wherever we feel like it, stop for a movie, a drink or why not both, walk some more and talk about everything in the world apart from things that involve motherhood. I want to go pee by myself and even check my phone on the toilet if I feel like it. I want to go grocery shopping without pushing a stroller, without having to check my toddler every two minutes just in case she picked something off a shelf (she loves doing that), I want to shop without stopping to give her a snack so I can keep her busy. I want to stop by every isle in the store and just take a good look at every single thing on the shelf because I have time to do it and I can.

Now, let me tell you something. I am on holiday and next week I will have two days off from motherhood because Ruby will be in nursery. YOOOOHOOOO!!!!!

I know! Every mom out there envies me right now. And some of you might even curse me or let out a “bitch” between your teeth. And no offence taken. I’d do the same.

But see, the expectations vs reality applies here. I’ll picture you my day off from motherhood. The real one and it goes like this.

Full of hopes and dreams I will wake up and smell the mummy freedom. I will warm up the milk for my daughter while humming a song (most probably a nursery rhyme or a lame 80’s one hit wonder cause it’s all i know). I won’t even get annoyed when she’ll start winging because no milk, because she wants blue shoes, because I breath, because I want to change her nappy and because anything… No, I won’t let anything bother me because I will be so sure that after I drop her off I will just breath, walk slowly towards Starbucks and have a coffee for an hour while reading mom blogs, I’ll stop for a wax and a thread and all the things I planned. That’s as far as I go because the second my daughter will be in Nursery my mum brain is on full mode and anxiety will kick in: get home, finally declutter my closet, empty the laundry basket, hoover, dust around, clean the windows and bathrooms, wash doors, window sills, clean the fridge and freezer. Please, declutter and rearrange the storage room that looks like something out of a hoarder house and I hate it from the bottom of my heart.

Stress, anxiety… they are my friends today, on my day off from motherhood. Youtube is set on my favourite 80’s workout playlist and I do all these things and when I am finally done I feel so exhausted I can barely have a glass of water. I look at the time and I know I have to shower army style in two minutes and go pick up my daughter.

But hey, I had a day off from motherhood and I managed to do all these things I was planning in doing for such a long time now. Thank God there are days off.