Absence

After a few weeks spilling over with fun and excitement, we all heard a big THUD as we landed back into reality this morning.  We went to my sister's Saturday, celebrated the 4th of July, and were back on the road Sunday AM to sit on the highway for hours like the suckers we are. We did get off the highway and made it home eventually, not without a puking incident.

I am exhausted, even after 9 hours of sleep last night (I crashed soon after the kids did!). I had a well-planned to do list and great intentions, but things are moving slooowwwlllyyy in my head.

We did enjoy the rest of our time away from the kids. Thursday night we went out to dinner at a lovely Greek BYOB where we sat in the most charming courtyard full of flowers and birds and fireflies. The service was slow and relaxing; when it started raining we all just got a bit wet, until the waiter came and opened a little overhang and we moved our tables under it and continued eating. I probably ate and drank too much (reminder---do not order the fried cheese appetizer), but I slept it off. Friday morning I checked out the "barre body" class at the gym---whoo! I loved it, though my legs hated me! Then G & I went for a bike ride. I wanted to see if I could handle a bike commute so we drove to my work. I was initially terrified, since its been about 9 years since I've gotten on my bike, and I've never driven down city streets before. I got the hang of it, and after a couple more practice rides I think I'll be ready to do it! It'll save me about 20-30 minutes/day in commuting.

We weren't sure how to spend the rest of Friday. G wanted to watch a movie at home, but then we decided that was boring. We couldn't go watch a movie, because of timing with dog-walking and picking up the car rental. We decided to go have a drink somewhere and turned around after 2 blocks because neither of us really felt like it. So we came home and worked on a (wait for it...geek alert) 1000 piece puzzle and had beer. It was relaxing! We picked up the car, got groceries, picked up Chipotle and got back to our puzzle. By the time we left Saturday morning, we had done 90% of the puzzle!

Friday was relaxing and fun, but it was also when I really started to miss the kids. It was actually quite nice (amazing!!!) on the work days, to not have to swing directly into the second shift of cooking/cleaning/childcare. But on the entire day off, there were periods where I wanted to spend time with them.

The kids were happy to see us Saturday. Apparently they had a blast, behaved remarkably well, and never asked for us, not once. They certainly were saving up some tantrums for us because the "perfect behavior" ended within 10 minutes of us setting foot in the house. G and L napped after lunch while I "caught up" with B---he was telling me stories of the past few days, some of which made zero sense, but were based in some version of reality. We spent the fourth with my sister and her family, my parents, and some of my sister's friends who came over. We had too much food, lots of watermelon, smores, pie, ice cream, beer & wine, and fireworks on the driveway. We kept the kids up until 9:30, for the "big fireworks" that were supposed to start at 9:15 (and that you can see from the sunporch), but they never came and we put the cranks to bed, thinking it was canceled for the weather. Of course, they started at 10PM and various loud booms continued 'til after midnight, which meant no sleep for me.

So. It was nice without the kids, and nice to see them again, too. I guess having all that time reminded me of why we decided to have kids in the first place...because we wanted to share our lives with little people full of wonder and weirdness.