Ten Steps to Home-Alone Heaven

Once you have kids, having the house all to yourself is a rare luxury. Although the scheduling of such a luxury may feel like a deterrent in and of itself, we promise you: Carving out the time for some Home-Alone Mama Maintenance is one of those things in life that you will never regret.

Over the years, we’ve developed a foolproof system that allows us to get the most out of these infrequent occasions, in ten easy steps:

Step 1:

Pour yourself a cocktail. Or perhaps a mocktail if that’s more your vibe. Something that takes a bit of extra time and energy to stir, shake, and/or garnish. (For ideas, here). Sip in silence.

Step 2:

Catch up on all the TV shows that your partner hates. Bask in your uninhibited control of the remote.

Step 3:

Take a ridiculously long shower. Wash your hair, shave your legs, scrub your feet . . . Do all the shit you always plan on doing but don’t, because, normally, as soon as you start to relax, you find yourself leaping out of the shower to attend to (what always turn out to be “phantom”) baby cries.

Step 4:

Waltz around the entire house naked. Enjoy not having to field questions about why your boobies look sad and whether or not you still have a vagina despite the region being covered in “all that furry stuff.”

Step 5:

Grab the essentials (a.k.a. wine and Nutella). Normally your partner would be all over that wine, and there’s no chance your kid would let you crack the Nutella without sharing. Who wants to share their wine or their Nutella? Not you, sister. Not tonight.

Step 6:

Organize something. You’ve been left completely unattended and are fuelled with alcohol and sugar. Despite your best efforts at strictly relaxing, you are definitely going to get your tidy on. Whether that’s putting the laundry away, lining up the board books by size, or finally tossing the kids’ too-small socks that have been lingering in the sock drawer, a project will be completed. Even though it feels lame to admit it, it’ll feel freakin’ amazing.

Step 7:

Head outside. Reward yourself for all your hard work by sitting on the back porch with a freshly topped-up glass of something-or-other or a freshly packed joint. You may decide to treat yourself to some much-needed silence, or listen to the profanity-filled hip-hop that you had to retire from the rotation when your toddler started saying “fuck” in context. Whatever you decide on, savour it.

Step 8:

Call your girlfriend. The one you never get to talk to, because she’s only free after 10:00 p.m. on weeknights. Shoot the shit with her for an hour. Dedicate the first four minutes of the conversation to telling her about the kids, then spend the other fifty-six minutes talking about literally anything else.

Step 9:

Indulge in some mindless scrolling. Before you hit the sack, park yourself on the couch and grab your phone. Lose yourself in your favourite app for longer than you know you should. Sure, you’re on your phone a lot anyway (even when the kids are around; you’re no angel), but this way is so much more fun, because it’s guilt-free phone usage. Best night ever.

Step 10:

Go to bed. Finish off your evening of indulgence by taking your clean, moderately tipsy ass to bed, nice and early. Crawl under the covers, maybe turn on the TV to watch anything but sports highlights, and drift off into uninterrupted dreamland. You’ve just found nirvana.