The Witching Hour
Before I got married, had a stepchild and a baby, I used to feel energized at the end of the work day. My only responsibility was getting to my 5:30 PM spin class and figuring out what to make for dinner. I could eat cereal if I wanted. I could watch 3 hours of uninterrupted mindless tv.
Fast forward to the present. 5:30 PM is now what I call The Witching Hour. It is when I feel like everything is pure chaos at my home.
My son is literally throwing smashed up goldfish crackers into the dog bowls and or pouring the dog water bowl onto his clothes. He then makes his way over the phone charger and begins to chew on the cord. My stepdaughter is starving and her bookbag, shoes and devices are strewn all over the floor leading up to the stairs. All three of my poorly behaved high anxiety dogs are jumping up and down and demanding to be fed. If it’s like most days, one or more of them has pooped on the kitchen floor while my back was turned.
If you were to knock on my door during this time you would hear the sounds from inside and probably run away. If you call me during this time, you’re going to get voicemail. I don’t know where my phone is and it’s probably at the bottom of one of my many bags.
It is the best of times and also the worst of times.
I love that my son is home and I can’t wait to spend time with him. This is when I can put my phone away (once I find it) and concentrate on my family. But I hate that there is no sitting down. All I want to do is just sit down and watch Law and Order SVU and have no one breathe, speak or bark. Instead, I feel like I am a contestant on a game show called Modern Working Mom where I am racing against the clock to feed my family something that won’t result in any complaints, make it downstairs to my gym before I am too tired (actually going to a gym is no longer a thing) and finally get a few minutes to sit down on the sofa before I inevitably close my eyes the second my husband turns on a show that I have chosen.
To be clear, I chose the mom-life, and this is not a complaint. I love our family and I continue to choose this life every day. I have so many privileges and so much to be happy about.
All I am saying is that from 5:30 until about 6:30, some crazy shit goes down. Even my body feels differently during that stressful time. I perspire from the anxiety. I pull into the driveway and I can already hear the dogs shrieking. I know my husband is going to give me the rundown of who peed and or pooped in their cages. My car is full of bags that I need to carry in; lunch bags, diaper bags, bags with my son’s shoes he refused to keep on at school, bags of files for work. And there is probably a bag from Target in there because why not?
I had one baby and suddenly I became a bag lady. My husband pulls up and exits his car like a normal person carrying only his keys and then there is me walking in looking like I have poorly packed for my international flight. I detest all of the bags I schlep back and forth, but I don’t know what the solution is. Maybe one huge bag to hold the smaller ones? A personal assistant to carry my stuff? I come in, drop all the bags on the floor and sigh in relief. We made it in one trip!
Now onto dinner. I’m someone who prefers a homemade dinner and I aim for us all to try and eat together, but it takes work and doesn’t always go as planned. My husband helps a lot, but there are definitely some days where it’s far easier to put a pizza or lasagna in the oven and call it a day. If we hit the lottery, I am hiring a personal chef to make us dinner every night. I know I can meal prep in advance, but that’s work too, and food doesn’t last more than a couple days. By Wednesday night, I don’t want the chicken I cooked Sunday.
Sometimes when I first come in the house and I have anticipatory anxiety, I can almost hear my own thoughts inside my head. Do we have vegetables to go with the dinner? Is the dishwasher still full from last night? Did I bring home my work bag? Is my purse in my car? Do I smell poop? Who pooped?
We are all in the kitchen and I am trying to coordinate a meal, pack my son’s lunch for the next day in his little bougie bento box, and my husband is feeding all the animals and praying they don’t secretly run off and immediately poop somewhere after they eat. Most of the time those prayers go unanswered.
We have very, very poorly trained animals which only adds to the chaos. We got a dog trainer a few years ago when we had just 2 dogs. My girls failed miserably and learned nothing. Then we adopted our sweet boy, Gramps who everyone by now knows is blind and approximately 47 years old. He is the most unique little soul but oh my goodness, he does not stop barking. Ever. He will howl from the moment we all come home and all through dinner. He sits beside the table and just barks at nothing. He gets under my feet in the kitchen and I almost break my neck when I don’t see him. My son gets down on the ground and starts pulling his tail and then he of course yelps and before I know it, everyone is barking and fighting and I am ready to go to a hotel.
Sometimes it’s so loud and so unbearable that my husband and I just look at each other and shake our heads. How did we end up with these wayward animals? Why is it that we have to medicate all of them in order to get them to relax and sit on the couch like normal dogs? We love them so much, but they are more work than my 1 year old by a long shot.
This is when my husband likes to jokingly remind me that this is why he was perfectly content with one potty-trained kid and one potty-trained dog.
And then all of a sudden, like the dawn of a new day, the bewitching hour is over.
At least for today.
Tranquility is restored or as much as it can be in our house. Dinner is done and somehow the dishes get rinsed and loaded (and then of course re-loaded by my husband because only he does it the right way). My stepdaughter is in her room unwinding or facetiming her friends. The dogs’ anxiety medication kicks in and my son is crawling around and tiring himself out. It’s almost bed time which is the best news I have given myself all day. And yes, I admit it’s not even 7:30 at night but it might as well by midnight. I am toast. I’m still in my gym clothes after squeezing in a sweaty workout and I am ready to just collapse onto the sofa and mentally clock out. I really should take a shower. But I am sooooo tired.
The opening credits for one of my murder shows haven’t even finished and I can already feel my eyes falling heavy. There is a dog curled up next to us, one between us and one on top of the back of the couch.
As crazy as life can feel at the end of the work day, this is a perfect way to end the evening. I will be asleep before 8:30 so I can recharge my batteries enough to do this thing called working mom life again tomorrow.
