All I want for Christmas is Time, Baby

     I blame my over-wrought, fatigued, and hyper-caffenieted brain and the local radio station over-playing Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" for my blog title. But I honestly hear it singing in my brain, "all I want for Christmas is time, baby" with a few oo, babys elongated and repeated over and over.
     Now if only time could be bottled in a cute Pinterest-stenciled bottle or gift-wrapped in a giant box with a ridiculously over-large red bow, I'd be a very happy woman. And I believe I'm not alone in this.
     Except, I am not just seeking time during the busy holiday season. That hectic time of year where we shuttle our kids from one "fun" activity to the next, exhausting ourselves for the sake of a happy family memory commemorated by twenty Instagram photos to prove we were having a good time or at least smiling for the camera before mom lost her cool again.
     I am not looking for a few more minutes to finish holiday shopping for whatever "it" gift my kids think they need (hatchimals, right?). And while I really do need more time to finish my Christmas cards, gift wrapping, cookie baking, party planning, and Christmas play practice schedule shuttling, etc; that's not the time I truly want.
    No, the time I desire is a bottle of an extra hour or two here and there to be used all year long so that I can escape and accomplish the thing I really enjoy doing - writing. Because between being a mother, taking care of the house, grocery shopping, remembering cousins, aunts, friends, grandmas birthdays, driving all over the city and back again (sounds like a more boring title for the Hobbit and lacks the dwarfs and dragon gold), and now working as a sub; my time falls through the cracks like the proverbial sands through the hourglass.
     But what I am left with most days is what I call "stupid time", that spare fifteen minutes between dropping kids off at the bus and when my next scheduled assignment or doctor's appointment, hair appointment, etc. happens. Or the majority of my spare time occurs in the half hour driving all over the Coachella Valley running errands and since they haven't invented robot-driven cars and after seeing I, Robot I'm afraid of my toaster getting ideas and planning with my Keurig to kill me or turn me into a battery like in the Matrix, writing while driving would not be a safe idea.
     If my wish could only be fulfilled, I'd slip my extra two hours a day along with it's companion half-carafe of coffee between getting off work and picking kids up from school. Two glorious hours to plot and create and kill off a few key characters, oh wait that's my George R.R. Martin mode kicking in, before being owned by my six-year-old until I finally win the bedtime battle and get him tucked in forty-five minutes past when I said "go to bed". (Yes, most nights he wins.)
      Not that I don't enjoy having him glued to my side for the five hours between school and bed. I mean, we accomplish a lot of things together like building forts and crying when it falls down, attempting art and crying when it doesn't turn out right, planting seeds and crying when they die after not being watered, helping mom with dishes and crying when we drop mom's favorite mug on the floor shattering it, or helping mom bake and crying when we don't get to crack the egg in the bowl or do crack it and cry over most of the shell ending up in the dough. Honestly, I do love him but need a Valium after several hours by his side. And isn't it amazing that the few minutes I do manage to sneak away from him while he's actually playing by himself, he manages to sense I'm sitting at my computer and runs to my side, quizzing me on what I just wrote, offering his help typing words he can't spell, or begging for help to write his own story. Yet, if I sit stock still on the couch doing nothing but staring at the latest mysterious stain on the wall, half-listening to the canned plot of Lab Rats, while counting my remaining brain cells, he leaves me alone for hours. It's only when his bat ears hear my feet walking somewhere with purpose that he springs into action.
     And please for the love of all that's holy or unholy do not tell a mother that she can get her stuff done when the kids go to bed. Because by the time I have fought two kids into bed after a long day of driving, working, cleaning, shopping, cooking, picking up, nagging, and listening to detailed play by plays of Minecraft gaming sessions, my brain resembles a television on the fritz. No channels come in, all stories are halted, left streaming through the atmosphere with no reception to pick them up and air them. Nothing but grey, staticky fuzz and a buzzing sound. It's enough for me to slump onto my side of the couch and watch non-Disney programming and occasionally give into the husband's amorous overtures. You know those subtle offers to rub your shoulders or cuddle only to have a penis tapping out Morse code on your back. Dot, dot, dot, I want sex, dot, dot, dot.
     So my selfish wish for Christmas isn't a Coach handbag, Lularoe leggings, or whatever diamond necklace K Jewelers tries to tell me I want - it's just time. Self-indulgent, all mine, no strings attached "me" time. Now do they sell it on Amazon?