Why Can’t Mondays only come on Mondays?

  I agree with the fat cat Garfield when he says “I hate Mondays.” I know I am not alone.

But I especially abominate Mondays when they fall on a Wednesday or Thursday or well any day of the week that is NOT a Monday.

What is so bad about a Monday?  Well for starters around my house Monday sets the tone for the week.   If Monday is too awful, the whole week is just gonna be bad.   But, If Monday is too good, then we’re too exhausted and overcome with getting so much done that we accomplish nothing the rest of the week.

Here’s an example of a really bad Monday:

1. Oversleep
2. Have no clean laundry
3. Discover that the dishwasher never got turned on and there are no clean dishes for breakfast
4. Children spend so much time fighting that school work is significantly delayed so you can play referee
5. Forget to take something out of the freezer for dinner
6. Lose the teacher book for the curriculum you are trying to reach 3 hours late when the review is due in one week
7. Figure something else out for dinner and then realize that you are all out of the something else and still have no dinner plans

I think I could list more things that have happened all at once on a Monday but I’ll stop at 7.  Basically it comes close to “if anything can go wrong it most likely will all at once and on a Monday.  Laundry won’t get done, school won’t get done, dinner doesn’t get cooked”   On those days I pray that the rest of the week will get better. 

What makes a Monday nearly perfect?

1. You get up early and find that you still have some clean clothes in your drawer.  After getting dressed you start a load of laundry.
2. The dishwasher actually got run and your oldest daughter is up making breakfast
3. Children get started on school right away and you get lots of laundry washed and dried
4. ALL the school you planned for the day actually GOT DONE.
5. Laundry didn’t just get washed and dried.  It got folded and put away
6. Dinner had already been planned and you remembered the plan and defrosted!

To summarize an exceptionally good, nearly perfect day:  All the laundry got done, all the school got done, chores actually got done and dinner was home cooked.   These are precious days but we’ve learned that if we expend so much energy on a Monday like this there isn’t any energy left for the rest of the week and not much at all will get done on Tuesday.

My oldest will breathe a sigh of relief when we have a truly good (but not exceptionally good, nearly perfect day).  A truly good day will set a positive path for the rest of the week.   A good day means we got some laundry done.  Maybe it didn’t all get folded.  It means we got some school done but maybe an assignment here or there still needs to be finished.  It also means that we had dinner.  Usually a simple one and usually not fixed by mom because she’s finishing up school with somebody.

But I’d still like to lodge a complaint against Monday when Monday in its ugly form rears its head on a different day of the week.   Yesterday was a Monday.  I know, I know, the calendar said it was Wednesday but it sure felt like a bad Monday.