Becoming a mother changes everything … your priorities, your perspective, your hopes and fears, your body, your ability to pee in private … . And that last one is important (other than for obvious reasons) because suddenly you never go anywhere alone. Now, there might be those few and far between moments where you steal away to the grocery store, leaving your little ones with daddy, or where they are at school and/or childcare while you work. For the most part, though, what seems like more often than not is that despite your having already given birth you have an appendage that is child. Nevertheless, I’m a firm believer that everyone needs “me” time, which is why I usually stay up until the wee hours of the morning because that’s the only time I can get it. But this time I have no excuse for still being awake at almost midnight … because I have a whole day to myself tomorrow!
You see, Bryan’s mom (a.k.a. “Mema”) has been talking about the children staying with her some during the summer I think since we had The Girl. When Bryan was growing up, each of his three cousins on his mom’s side of the family would take turns staying a week with them. So Mema has been wanting to do something like that with the grandkids, but once Boy Genius and The Girl were what I considered “old enough” to spend a week away from home, we had moved to Corpus Christi and the distance was just too much. Then, last summer, we were in Franklin (only 3 short hours north of Mema), but we were so busy with house renovations and things like T-ball that no one really pushed the issue. So, here we are now, about 7 hours from Mema, and school’s out for the summer so let the kid-vacations begin!
We discussed The Girl and Boy Genius each visiting for a week on their own, but Mema was thinking that Wonder Boy might be a bit hard to entertain all on his own (ya think?). I, in what honestly began as a joke, suggested that she keep all three for a week to give Bryan and I some “couple time.” Well, she bit! So, on Friday, we drove to Alabama for a visit and came back home today completely kid-less! The plan is to meet somewhere halfway next weekend for a reunion. It’s a perfect plan since the latter half of this week I’ll be in Hot Springs for continuing legal education and would have otherwise had to make childcare arrangements; except it’s not the perfect plan because I already miss the kids.
We have, though, already taken some advantage of our renewed coupledom, darting off to see Star Trek less than an hour after arriving home. Maybe we’ll have a “date night” tomorrow night – dinner and a movie; or maybe we’ll just rent a movie and snuggle on the couch. I’ve got commitments for part of the week, but the rest I’m completely free to do whatever … deep clean the minivan, take the dogs to the vet, go to the grocery store (I need to work something fun in there somewhere!) … all by myself … wow, whatever will I do????