Tax Season (Drum roll, please!)

Yes, today is the kick-off for tax season. Tax-season – for the uninitiated, is the time when people do their paperwork for Uncle Sam, hopefully before April 15th, send it in, and forget about it. Tax-season for the few, the proud, the brave – (the CPAs) is the time when you deal with everybody else’s tax returns, in addition to your own, generally working at least 60 hours a week and having little time for seeing your family or sleeping and absolutely none for recreation (except for Sundays). My husband is a CPA, and I am now officially a tax-season-widow until April 16. [Note: this is not said in the spirit of complaint - it's just a fact of life. I knew about tax season going into marriage to a future CPA and I understand the necessity for it.]\par
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This year, we are trying out a new tax season schedule. Last year, Michael tried to get into work by 6, work 12 hours, leave at 6, get home by 7, have a late dinner and family time until the boys went to bed at 8 and retire early to get too little sleep and do it again the next day. The result of that, since the boys don’t seem to sleep in later if they go to bed later, was very long days for Mommy culminating in trying to make dinner with a small baby, and a very tired crabby toddler underfoot at 6:00 at night. (Michael obviously\’c3\’82\’c2\~was tired as well, but that’s a given) Also, Michael got to see his children at their worst, as the before bed-stage can sometimes be an ugly sight. Since this year I would have two tired crabby toddlers underfoot, we’ve decided to try something new. We’re reversing the schedule – instead of having dinner with us at 7:00pm, Michael is having breakfast with us at 7:00 am. Today Michael got up, had a little play time with the boys, ate breakfast, did devotions,\’c3\’82\’c2\~and prepared for work, allowing them to play around him while he shaved and such, and left around 8:30 or 9:00. He won’t be coming home for dinner. So I won’t be making dinner. We’ll eat left-overs, and I’m thinking that tomorrow, I’ll make\’c3\’82\’c2\~”dinner” for lunch, and eat a casual lunch-like meal for dinner – thus avoiding the “tired-toddlers-underfoot-while-trying-to-cook-and-about-ready-to-kill-someone” syndrome. Michael’s hoping that this schedule will make it easier for him to prioritize family time, and I’m hoping that it’ll make the late afternoon/early evening time more relaxed and less draining.\’c3\’82\’c2\~\par
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We’ll see how it works!