The Week Our House was Quiet

My hand started to shake as I signed the Power of Attorney consenting have someone else make decisions regarding my children’s medical care for 5 days.  “OMG, What if they actually have to use this?”, I thought as my mind raced through all the bad things that could happen in a week to two small children, away from home…out of state.  Certainly, we’ve had weeks where we’ve need to go to the doctor almost everyday.  What if Greenleigh accidentally got a hold of a peanut?  What if her asthma got out of control?  What if there was an accident?  What if, what if, what if…  I was ready to pull the plug on this whole “Week at the Grandparent’s House” thing right then and there.  But then I remembered how much the girls were looking forward to it.  And how much their grandparents were looking forward to it.  And how tired exhausted I felt.

I won’t lie, it was the last part that tipped the scale.  Because I really was (and still am) exhausted and the thought of continuous hours of sleep were just too tempting.  Exhaustion won out.

And so, off they went.  We flew with them up to Georgia on Friday and flew back to Florida without them on Sunday.  I expected them to freak out as we pulled out of the driveway of my in-law’s house and yet they just stood there, smiling and waving.  I said a silent prayer for my in-laws sanity and all the fragile items in their house on our way to the airport.  My husband and I then returned to a house that felt too large and too quiet and too empty, where we scrambled to make plans to keep ourselves busy – movies, dinners out, shopping.  We had too much free time.  We had no idea what to do with ourselves.

First full day of our kids being at their grandparents (out of state): My husband and I have Skyped with our kids, reminisced about all the cute stuff they say, and done impressions of stuff they’d say if they were with us. Clearly, we’re doing this “week without kids” all wrong.  – 8/5/13, Facebook Post

We reunited with the girls and my in-laws on Friday in Chicago (my in-laws drove the girls to Chicago on Wednesday for a family wedding we were all attending – more on that later this week), where I was certain that they had morphed to teenage-size proportions.  Seriously, how much can they grow in 5 days?  It was clear that they not just liked, but loved, the time they spent with their grandparents…and probably didn’t hear the word “no” a lot during those 5 days.

I had all sorts of blogging and baking and crafting on my to do list last week, but none of that really got done.  I wish I had some fantastic project to show you that I slaved over all last week, but I don’t.  Instead, here are a few realizations:

• Even without kids, I still can’t seem to make it to work “on time”.  Turns out the kids are just a great excuse. (I put the words on time in quotes because I don’t actually have a time that I need to be at work, but at a certain point, it just gets embarrassing.)
• I gained the most weight during my pregnancy with Greenleigh simply because I had the opportunity to eat.  I just about screamed when I jumped on the scale towards the end of last week to find that I had gained nearly 5 pounds.  Chalk some of that up to the 3rd trimester, but the rest is that I wasn’t chasing kids around a restaurant, trying to get them to stay quiet, picking dropped items off the floor, running food options back and forth across the kitchen, and I wasn’t so exhausted after getting them fed and off to bed that I just said “forget it, I’ll eat tomorrow”.  My kids are my weight management plan.  I need them.
• Last week was my cleaning lady’s vacation week.  I mean, she still came and cleaned our house, but her job a ton easier than it normally is.  (And don’t worry, we do, in fact, give our cleaning lady a vacation.  A real one.)
• My pets get freaked out when the kids aren’t there.  Make no mistake, my cat and dog don’t like the girls, but they’ve gotten used to them being around.  I thought they’d be doing the happy dance, but instead they looked at me all week like, “Seriously, what did you do with them?”.
• My kids might need a 2 week vacation to recover from their 5 days with their grandparents.  My biggest concern with this whole arrangement was that the kids would be bored.  That the lack of camp and dance class and birthday parties and friends (and us) would mean that they would be bored.  Instead, I reunited with 2 very tired children who had a week full of adventures.  I had to pry them out of bed at 8:30 this morning to get them ready for the last week of camp.