This weekend I ran away from home.
Okay, I’m way too responsible and uptight to run away from home, but I negotiated a LOT of free time so Spouse could hang out with the boys. (See how I am now choosing to see that? Good for me! Good for them! Bonding time, not escaping time. Win-win-win-win.)
I got up before dawn with my little tornadoes, frolicked, cooked, attended, and mediated battles big and small for a couple of hours until Spouse tumbled out of bed. Then I left. I walked, I wrote, I surfed the Internet, and I had grownup food.
I came home after four hours alone and had a date with almost-six-year-old Peanut while Spouse and almost-two-year-old Butter slept. My sweet, highly spirited boy and I did some science, some art, some reading, and some side-by-side napping. More importantly, we smiled, we laughed, we cuddled.
When the little guy woke up from his nap I heard him, but Spouse played with him for almost an hour before they discovered us. Eight hours after I kissed them goodbye.
Eight hours. I was so giddy with freedom I danced and skipped (yes, literally) through dinner and bathtime.
(NB: I observed that no amount of battery recharge can make dinnertime with my particular small children easy. Nice to know it’s not the end of my patience-reserves that makes dinner so vision-dimmingly fraught. Quite simply, the nightly, two-hour adrenaline-pumping-fest that is dinner, bath, and bed, is spread heavily across the fragile skeleton of their utterly depleted, frenetic little bodies. So: witching hour is their fault. I did not know that before. I had continually criticized myself for not finding joy in hours 11-13 of my all-child-all-the-time days. Now I’m just going to drink through them, since I’m not the problem.)
(Kidding.)
(No, I’m totally not kidding.)
But back to my colossal Saturday of Joy break…
Oh, Interwebz, how I love operating at my own speed, to my rhythms, in whatever directions I want to go. Good Gravy, freedom feels like warm salted caramel sauce on chocolate and marshmallow ice cream. Why did I not know this? Why have I not worked harder to get this? Is the sweetness relative to the preceeding batshit insane-iness?
And how delightful, delicious, and delectable my adorable and silly children are when I am not running on fumes. My, but I enjoyed my time with Peanut, my reunion with Butter, my gratitude toward Spouse. Amazing, yummy creatures, my guys are.
I hope all parents, working inside and outside the home, get a chance to experience the glory that is solitude. After we get running water to all the world and health care to everyone and stability to the world’s violent regions and food and safety to children and adults alike, maybe we could get all humankind some breathing room and a vegan reuben.
This day has been a long time coming. And I so enjoyed the peace, quiet, and space to complete my own thoughts while doing a novel thing called blinking, that I am willing to proclaim my Saturday break intoxicating.
Drunk on mental health day awesomeness! Woo-hoo! Get yourself some of this!
Cheers!
NaptimeWriting 
Alone time! YAY! The ability to pee in solitude! YAY! Adult food! SO MANY YAYS!
I’m so glad you got the break. Here’s hoping there are more in the future at regularly scheduled intervals.
Kristin, YES. To all of that. Yes and yay. Hope you get some, too, with or without the sheep.
NAPTIME! Excellent news:) Don’t forget that feeling lest you slip back into old habits!
It is truly joyous to feel like a human being again, isn’t it?
I have one day..ONE day alone with my children every week, and I always feel defeated, incapable and like a horrid parent at the end of it. I can not imagine how it feels to have them all day every day.
Can you arrange for a weekly break? Take your friend up on one day a week of “Real person living in the universe” time? Shit, once every OTHER week would be better than nothing!
Dirtdonthurt, I plan to make it as regular as possible. The weekends are usually the best chance, but I’m looking into weekday help. Now that I know how much better I am after a break, I can see getting more as vitamins for the family
I think all I can say is, “Dude, righteous.” I don’t know – just came to me on a whim. It’s nice to see that you appreciate the time off verses feeling like you “deserved” it (which of course you did, but still…).
@Cathy Righteous is exactly it. And I’m hardpressed to form a sentence without “Dude,” so that sentiment is right on. Deserved didn’t even enter my head. But most jail breaks are too busy running, right, to malign the system. ;-)
@Unicorn Party on, Wayne. Forget the mug and T-shirt. I got a cable access channel for this one.
@ Jane That sounds heavenly. Heavenly. At this rate I won’t get the weancation for a while, but it’s soooooo nice to see the little guy asking for Spouse every once in a while instead of clinging desperately to me like the first one did. He, by the way, wants nothing to do with me lately, which seems remedied by the solo date I had with him. Win-win-win-win. But no Westin yet. You should take your day soon. It’s almost 2013. ;-)
Naptime’s Excellent Adventure… adapted from Bill and Ted.
Or SCHWING!!!! from Wayne.
Cathy made my brain fart. That’s all I got, and a stupid t-shirt. You need a t-shirt to make your day official. Or a mug.
*head bang* *air guitar*
Good for you! My husband, as a gift when #2son finally stopped nursing (and I won’t relay the number but he was very old by U.S. standards) gave me the gift of a night, alone at the Westin – room service, a massage at the spa, the works. It. Was. Heaven. I promised myself that I would take a mini-break from motherhood just like that once a year. (And no. I haven’t done it since. But I’m still dreaming of the next time.)
HOORAY! Am so glad you made that time happen…and hope you can do it again soon!
Preach, Inky.
yahoo for you!… it gets better.. it does, i’m climbing out of a hole into this new world of 3.5 and 6 years old and they understand quiet time for at least 15 min.. imagine? i’m serious…. you are living in survival mode and it’s so stressful…. i’m not sure how i made it through but hiring a sitter and ditching out at least one saturday morning every once in a while to go to yoga and drive a car without answering questions about the universe helped… and stop moving, that makes it treacherous, it almost killed us all! see you on the flip side of sanity.
Tara! Yeah, moving does *not* help. We’ll make it through. One Saturday morning at a time.
Amen to that Naptime! You really gotta get some more of that at regular intervals. So happy for you :-)
Thanks, Kim! Me, too. Now you go do the same. Free time for everyone, on the house!
I had a day like that last spring. And I cant’ believe it’s been so long since. Browsing through bookstores. In the new fiction FOR GROWN UPS. Far from picture books and beginning readers and chapter books and mobiles hanging from the ceiling. Ideas in my head not interfered with by requests for water and more snacks and all manner of wiping bodily excretions. Oh, it’s time for another.
ditto on the amen, sister. do it again!
@Jen of *course* it’s time. Almost a year is way too long. Do you take a minute at the bookstore to see which books would flank yours when it’s published? I do. Good company, my book will have.
@julieg Your wish is my command. Cuz you know your shizzle and have good taste. So. More it is. Your turn, too, though. Get some of this goodness for you.