Empty nest blissfulness

This week has been blissfully free of children.  Blissful, I tell you.  We’ve hardly done anything special.  In fact, most of it has been spent on the couch watching TV, or sitting side by side as we read our separate books, or even just doing nothing with no noise whatsoever.  I think that’s our favorite.  No TV.  No videogames.  No bickering or demands, or miscellaneous messes to clean up.  Just the two of us in our house that is suddenly ridiculously easy to keep clean.  Even meals are wonderful, cooking for two with very little clean up.

It’s just plain blissful.

We started the week at our favorite little spa/camping spot in the world, braving the frosty weather in the hills to be able to soak in hot springs during the day and snuggle underneath a mountain of blankets at night.  It was the same place that Shawn proposed to me, and we hadn’t been there since we got married.  So it was a bit nostalgic to hike on the same trail we walked over a year before, pausing in the spot where he knelt on one knee pretending to tie his shoe, only to offer me a ring and a promise.  🙂

This camping trip was the perfect way to start our kidless week.  I was feeling a little down, having said goodbye to DQ the night before.  I had fought a few moments of tears, and I know I’m guilty of snipping at Shawn a couple of times for no good reason except he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A trip into the hills and away from everything else helped to center the both of us, melting away the stress, negativity, and any lingering sadness so that when we drove back, we were actually ready.

New Years Eve was naturally kidless as well.  But rather than do anything special like go out in the freezing cold all dressed up to spend way too much money, we stayed home in our PJs and ate a delicious steak and potato dinner.  He drank his glass of non-alcoholic champagne.  I drank a delicious chocolate martini.  He was totally sober all night long.  I got a bit too tipsy off my one drink.  He slept like a baby all night long.  I threw up all night long.

Oops.

The rest of the week has been pretty tame.  We got to spend some kidless time with some good friends of ours.  We’ve resumed our normal working hours.  And we’ve enjoyed our home time totally unplugged from parenting.  It’s been a nice little break.

When I pick up the Taz on Saturday, I know it will be bittersweet.  It will be nice to have him back.  But his sister’s absence won’t go unnoticed.  It’s when life without DQ here will actually hit.  So to remedy that first day of transition, I am spoiling Taz with a trip to Six Flags – just the two of us – for a day of fun before we actually head home and go back to regular life in its altered state.

But in the meantime, I am really, really enjoying the empty nest state of things right now.

“I could get used to this,” I joked to Shawn.

“No you couldn’t,” he told me.  “You’d miss the kids if they actually moved out.”

Maybe so.  But this quiet week sure has been great.