Mondays and Fridays

Unless you really, really like your job, Mondays are the day you
usually dread and Fridays the day you look forward to. For Amy,
though, it's the other way around: she can't wait for Mondays, and
Fridays are the hardest.

See, here's how the week goes for the Huang family. Monday through
Friday, I'm at work, of course, and so I try to take care of Jada on
the weekends so that Amy has those two days for relaxation and chores.
Sometimes, we'll have some major social thing, like seeing family and
friends, or sometimes the three of us will do something relaxing like
take a walk or go out to dinner.

Whatever it is, although Amy certainly appreciates having more time to
herself, by Monday she's chomping at the bit for her Jada time.
Mondays and Tuesdays are when they spend all day together, and Amy
relishes the opportunity. They do fun stuff like go to the park or
hit the stores. Jada usually takes a really long nap on Mondays and
Tuesdays, because I and/or our social calendar have worn her out the
previous weekend, so that's even more time for Amy.

Wednesdays and Thursdays we have Jada in day care, so that's when Amy
puts her school hat on. Wednesday she tries to hit the books as hard
as possible, and Thursday she has class all day, so by the end of this
two-day stretch, she's pretty spent.

Which brings us to Friday. The weekend is still a day away, so I'm at
work. Jada's been at day care two days in a row, so she can tend to
be clingy and want to make up for lost time with Mama. And Amy, as
mentioned before, is running on fumes.

Last month, Fridays were even more arduous, as we had tiring to-do's
three weeks in a row: Jada's one-year follow-up by our social worker +
our home study for baby number two, Jada's pediatrician appointment,
and fingerprinting at the local INS office for our second adoption.
So imagine three Fridays in a row of answering hard questions, helping
Jada through immunizations and ear-cleanings, and waiting in line at a
government agency. And then I have to dart back to work, and my
return home several hours late can't come soon enough for Amy.

I'm not writing this to complain or to ask for your sympathy, just to
document the rhythm of a typical week for Jada's and our future
reading enjoyment. Although I would ask that if you do bump into my
wife on a Friday in the future, please be nice to her: she might be
wishing it was Monday.