In the final weeks of summer vacation (what?? It’s over already? Noooo….), my kids are spending time with their father. For 10 glorious miserable days, my kids are missing from my house as they do God knows what 3 hours from here. And me? I’m missing from my house too. Mr. W and I are playing house, and relishing the fact that we have no kids counting down the minutes till our children are home (his son is at his mother’s house). So obviously, that means we are living large while living it up! It’s party time, our time to dance and to paint the town red! It’s time to stay out late and travel to exotic places! It’s time to do all those things we want to do but can’t when the kids are around.
Which pretty much means that we are eating quiet dinners, watching TV, and then going to bed. Oh, and I managed to beat my high score on Bejeweled.
So when did we get boring? Honestly, the kids are coming home in less than a week, and I have spent most of my downtime doing absolutely nothing. And part of me feels bad that I’m not living it up more. I mean what would I be doing if my kids were here? I’d be eating dinner, watching TV, and then going to bed. But in between all of that, I’d be doing laundry, cooking, grocery shopping… When the kids are here I am breaking up fights and thinking of things for them to do. I’m constantly picking up after them. I’m on the go from the moment I wake up to the minute I lay down to go to bed.
This week it’s been nice to be in a clean home. The quiet in the house has been fantastic. And most of all, it’s been a dream to do….nothing.
Sure, when the kids are back, I might wish I had made better use of my time. It’s about to be a really long school year as they skip going to their dad’s house due to the 3 hour drive, and I’m about to say goodbye to my regular breaks from being a mom as our schedule triples itself. I may wish I had done more social outings, or traveled to more local hotspots, or even took some days off of work to get even farther away. I may wish I had danced more and really painted the town red.
But honestly? I’m not sorry about how I spent my time. It’s been great to unwind and relax, recollecting my bearings before the kids come back home so that I can be a better mom. And truth be told, it hasn’t all been the day-in or day-out. In our kid-free days we’ve gone out to lunch, I’ve done more writing, I’ve found new hobbies I want to try out, and we’ve even tried out a couple fantastic culinary creations.
But yes, for the most part we have relaxed. And in that process, I’ve lost the feelings of mom-burnout as I make laziness an artform. I even miss my kids, and look forward to having them home again. Eventually.
Until then, I think I’ll just relax.
When your kids are away from the house, do you live it up….or lay low?
Wine Country Mom 
Sometimes, when you get your break, you just need to recharge. I would suggest trying to find time to do ONE ‘fun’ thing kid-free…go on a day-trip to the city or window-shopping and to lunch in Sonoma, or go for a hike somewhere gorgeous and then have dinner out at the coast to recoup all the calories you burned hiking, just so you can feel like you ‘did something on your summer vacation’, but other than that, enjoy the kid-free relaxing.
I totally understand about just relaxing! My husband and I just did the same thing while our 5 year old daughter was at my parents for 7 days; we spent most of the time relaxing and re-charging too. There were some 2 in the morning ice cream runs, a few very late nights 🙂 and a couple of movies, but mostly we just enjoyed the calm and quiet and had conversations that were not interrupted every couple of minutes.
It has been very nice to not have to be a parent for a week. Yet schools around the corner and all the back to school shopping paperwork etc. This weekend is a good one to get away to our quiet retreat and fully recharge. To completely disconnect from
the hustle ad bustle of a digitally driven world.
So when we get back we can work then venture off the the sunny beaches in San Diego. Ahhhh summer!
Mr. W.
Last night was the first child free night in almost 20 years. Both sons are never away at the same time, so this was quite obviously a rare evening. Ohh, what amazingly grown up things did we do? Well…we had an exciting night…husband played some online games and I was ZZzzzing by 9 PM (big mistake…been up since 2 am now…). Yeah, once you’ve had kids, the childfree life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in my book.
They’re gone again tonight…what to do, what to do?….hmmm…maybe Bingo at the high school?….ohhh, ahhh, don’t be jealous! 😉
When we have a night off, which last night was the first in nearly a year. We eat the foods that the kids don’t like, we get projects done and enjoy the quiet, and every 6 months we take a day away to go spend getting massages, lunch and/or dinner and wine tasting. We are happy with the simple things, wine tasting especially: no whining I want that or fights in the car and we listen to our music, plus since we drink so rarely the little bit of wine makes us giddy and laugh. But the best part about when we are away from the kids: the hugs we give and get when they are back are so much better, priceless.
Once I was talking to a woman at work and she asked what I was doing that weekend.
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I said, “Well I’m not sure. We have a 3 year old and my parents are taking her for the weekend. So we’ll probably…”
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She interrupted, “Spend the whole weekend talking about the 3 year old?”
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I thought to myself, “No way!”
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But when the weekend was over, I realized that was exactly what we’d done. Ah…kids, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. And people really frown on shooting them.
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At least most people. 😀
@Stray: We’re packing up right now to go to our favorite spa. Can’t wait!
@Joleen: A big YES to everything you just wrote. 😉
@Mr. W: What’s taking you so long? Hurry up so we can blow this joint! LOL!
@JAsMom: So you get it! I think the “boring and mundane” are that much more enjoyable when the kids are gone because those are the very things our kids would complain about the most. Good luck at Bingo tonight!
@Joe: Exactly! The time away from the kids is wonderful. But it makes it that much sweeter when I get to see them again.
@Kristin: I really wish I could read what you write in your comments without blowing coffee through my nose. And yes, I admit it. The kids have been the center of many of conversations this week.
The fingerprints, they higher and higher…and then they dissappear.