My bestie took all three kids last night to her house. To stay. ALL night. She did buy them a harmonica to bring home today, but I am gonna let that one slide.
We asked Callie and her family if they wanted to go with us to watch our high school basketball team play in the regional championship last night. Shawn and I wanted to go, and make the one hour trip, since our team had a good chance to win. (We didn’t, but it was a close and exciting game.)
After I asked, I worried that they might get sick of us. I get how tiring we can be. We’re not everyone’s cup of tea.
We DID just spend quite a bit of time together last weekend on our annual trip to the lake. Side note: If it were up to me, my bestie and her family, could move in and I’d be alright with it. It takes me a LONG time to get tired of people and I don’t think I could get tired of them. I am just so social. I love being around people. And if you love them, it just makes it even better.
We met at the game, armed with a boatload of toys to keep our kids happy, and rooted for our team. We dished to each other about our work week and funny stories. I think I talked the entire time, high from being able to have some girl time for the second weekend in a row. After the game, we took our kids to the local DQ to get ice cream. Luckily, they had a play place and our kids played (i.e. screamed) while we talked and laughed. It was a perfect, unexpected Friday night.
Whenever our kids are together, they are always asking to stay the night with each other. Callie said it was her turn and convinced reluctant Sophie to stay with them and invited Sloane to go with. I invited their youngest boy to play with Rory and stay the night but he wouldn’t without his sister. And then all a sudden, they said that they might as well take Rory too. It happened so fast.
We kind of freaked, not wanting to unleash the chaos on them all at once. Rory isn’t at 100% keeping himself dry all night, not to mention we have to beg, plead and do a special song and dance to get him to release his bowels. He has only ever stayed at my Mom and Dad’s and it was about a year and a half ago.
Shawn fully expected our kids to wear our their welcome and to have to go and pick them up in the middle of the night. I think he silently wanted to go and pick them up because he felt like it was too much of an imposition. But even though they went to bed late and got up early, it all went swimmingly. Even if it didn’t, I am not sure she’d tell me otherwise. She’s that fabulous.
You guys, I know you see us getting out of the house. I know you see us doing lots of things and having more than the average amount of kid-free time. But we have not had an entire kid-free night from ALL three kids since July of 2017. My girls have spent the night with my parents last summer, but we still had Rory. We each have been away separately for a night or two because of different commitments, but we have not spent a night away together from all the kids in a good while.
My Mom and Dad are super helpful but also super busy. My Mom still works part-time and they both keep up the most insane schedule of trying to take in 8 different grandkids sports schedules, extracurriculars, covering doctor appointments, covering daycare closings, pick up and drop off when needed, and school programs. Asking to keep our high-intensity kids all night just never seems to be the right time. They just looked so tired when we picked them up after we went on a long weekend trip to Tybee Island in 2017. Plus, our oldest is a little scared to be away from us and can get mopey about it. So a night away just hasn’t happened lately.
But last night it did happen. And it was amazing. We didn’t have to yell at anyone to get back in bed, tell someone to stop humming the Jurassic World theme song at 11:00 p.m. or break up any fights this morning. We slept all night and woke up this morning refreshed. We decided to get a small date since we were home late and went out to breakfast and coffee at a local coffee shop. We even left our bed unmade. We were high on life, I tell you. We ordered coffee and our breakfast AND a homemade oatmeal cream pie to share. It’s the small things, people.
It was an impromptu night that could have not happened at a better time. And we love our kids. We do. But we also loved being away from them and spending time together, just the two of us. We picked up our kids this morning and enjoyed hearing about their night. As we kissed goodbye and I thanked Callie for keeping my crazy kids, I started tearing up. I couldn’t even say what I wanted. I was a little too emotional about her keeping my kids for the night. I know it seems like such a small thing, but it’s not.
The takeaway? Find someone who will put up with your high maintenance children and love them like they are their own. Go seek out your couple friends and ask if you can give them some time off. I plan on returning the favor because we can’t be the only couple who needed this.
How do you escape? Do you leave your children overnight?
Love,
Stef