A Momi-festo: part one of the Mommy-cation

Yes, I know.  I know.  It’s been over three months since I’ve written.  Hey, it’s summer.  There were vacations, and outdoor activities, and we put the house up for sale, so we were constantly having to be out of it so strangers – excuse me, potential buyers – could roam through it.  Plus my best friend moved far, far away, so I had to help her pack.  Which, if you’ve ever done a state-to-state move that was not sponsored by the U.S. government, let me be the first to tell you: is hard.  Also, I can’t sit down in front of the computer when I’m holding my kids to the “Sun’s up, screen’s off” rule. 
                {side note: do you know how late the sun stays up in the summer?  Good grief!}
Okay, all done with my excuses?  Good; me, too.  And, reader, thanks for coming back.  You’re much cheaper than therapy. 

Now, let’s talk about something I’ve re-discovered in the past 8 days.  {editor’s – um, that’s me again – note: this was intended as a single article; but as I hopped up on my soapbox, I couldn’t’ stop.  So this has to be a two-part series.  Look at the bright side: at least this way you know I can’t abandon you for a quarter of a year again anytime soon.}  The glorious, heaven-sent, I-can’t-believe-how-I-lived-without-this practice called:

The Mommy-cation

What’s the Mommy-cation?  Plainly, it’s time away from all kids and all spouses (I’m sincerely hoping that you have only one spouse, reader.  I can’t imagine the work involved in having more than one.).  Time that is all mine.  No work, no kids to care for, no husband to entertain.  Just me.  All by my wonderful lonesome.

I can’t tell you (mostly because I promised on my life that I wouldn’t name names) how many mothers have confessed to me something akin to the following:

All I really want for {Mother’s Day/my birthday/our anniversary} is to wake up in a hotel room.  ALONE.  No one needing to be fed.  No one crying, or whining, or complaining, or singing, or screaming, or cuddling… Just me.  And I want to sit all day in that plush bathrobe they give you.  And eat chocolate.  And go to the pool, all by myself.  And watch t.v.  And read.  And nap.  And go to dinner without having to cut anyone’s food, or worry about what someone else won’t eat, so I’d better just eat theirs… 

Look at you, reader, I can tell your eyes are glazing over with the thought right now.  You can picture exactly what that room looks like, can’t you?  You’ve mentally put that robe around you and have opened that box of chocolates, haven’t you?  Sounds divine, doesn’t it? 

But then, just as you’re closing your eyes to enjoy the engulfing silence, Guilt starts tapping at your heart.  What kind of a mother daydreams about leaving her children out of her fun?  Mothering, that scared calling, is a fleeting thing.  They’re only little for so long.  What if you miss one moment.  What if you blink and it all rushes by?    

Ladies, I know: we love our kids.  Love them so much that we would, without hesitation, lay down our very lives for them.  No one is arguing that you don’t love your kids.  That’s good.  It’s healthy.  It’s Mom-y.    

What isn’t healthy (and here’s where I make some people uncomfortable, and just tick others off), is never spending any time away from our families.  What isn’t healthy is being able to honestly say, “I don’t know when the last time was that I had a minute to myself was.”  And no, unaccompanied trips to the grocery store Do. Not. Count.  Those are just sanity savers.    

And I’m NOT talking about the bi-annual Mom’s night out offered by your church’s youth group so that you can go hang with other Moms.  Nor am I referring to Date Night.  Those are separate necessities.  Girl’s Night Out is to remember what it’s like to have adult conversation with other women, without having miniature people hanging all over you.  Date Night is to remember why you married the man who is half responsible for the tiny folk running your life right now.      

As for the “what if I miss it” question, let me pose another: If you’ve spent every single moment of your child’s life with them, do you feel full up?  What I mean is, do you lay down at night and think, “yeah, I feel like I’ve caught and remembered every single bit of her third year.  I’m ready for four.  I’ll never feel that tug other Moms feel when they think, oh, if time would just slow down—she’s growing too fast.”

See what I mean?  As Moms, we always want more of our kids.  They’re blessings.  They’re the best (and some days the worst) parts of us and our husbands.  We could have an eternity at each stage, and I bet we’d still want it to last even longer. 

My point is: you’re going to wish you’d had more time with your littles no matter what.  Therefore, should you not also attend yourself during their growing years?  Aren’t you a better mom and wife when you do? 

How the Mommy-cation Started:

I can hear you asking, don’t you miss everyone?  Aren’t you lonely?  And in a much quieter, almost afterthought, how is this possible?

First, I claim no credit for this genius invention.  It was all my Mom (she is quite brilliant, you know).  Four years ago, she convinced me that I needed time to myself, away from the kids.  She told me that it would make me a better Mom.  At the time we had this conversation, I was run down, at my wits’ end, and a teensy bit jealous that an old [childless] friend was celebrating her 30^th birthday in Paris while I was covered in toddler food and hadn’t showered in goodness only knows how long.  I didn’t need much convincing. 

And because my Mom is a considerate gal, she insisted that I let my Mom-in-Law take the kids, too.  Because my kids were 3 and5 at the time, they were only gone for a week – 3 days with each set of grandparents.  And so began the annual summer tradition of time at Camp Wela-Welo and the Mi-Pop Estates.  As the kids have grown, we’ve expanded their time: 1 week with each set of grandparents.  At first, the Officer took 1 week off, and we spent the time honeymoon-camping and hiking 14ers; the second week was mine.  Granted, the Officer would be here in the evenings; but he let me rattle about the house on my schedule (I’m a bit of a night owl), and we'd go on a few dates together throughout the week.  It was lovely.  Then when the Officer joined the Guard, we combined the weeks to coincide with his, so the kids still visit each set of grandparents for a week, we just stack them so the minis are gone for two weeks total.  And I end up with 12 days (2 are traveling) of all-by-myself-ness.  As an introvert, I can’t explain to you how live-giving this is.    

Also, I can’t explain how awesome it is for our kids to spend this time with their grandparents.  Both of our families live out of state; so we see them less frequently now that the minis are in school.  This is their one shot every year to have unadulterated (literally, Mom and Dad aren’t there, so their grandparents can spoil them any way they choose) Grandparent time.  And I’m happy that my kids are making memories with our parents.  I mean, Grandparents are God’s gift to kids – adults who will cater to their every whim, while telling hilarious stories about what their parents did as children.  It’s a beautiful relationship to cultivate.  It’s a win for everyone involved.     

 

 

---I’ll address exactly why MOMMY-CATIONS should be practiced by every mom in part two of this series.  Plus give you the “rules,” how to make this a reality in your world, and 20 different ways I’ve spent my Mommy-cations.  Come back next week, reader; it'll be fun.    

Party like it's 2013

The midnight balloon

Funny thing: I’m still suffering from holiday-hangover.  My classes just started (keeping my fingers crossed that my fin-aide goes through—I filled out the wrong form, true to my imperfect self), though the minis have been back at it for weeks now.  The what-day-is-it fog is still very thick since most of our activities are different; and the Officer’s schedule just changed (it’s that time of year, people) so I’m even more confused than normal.  All these things culminate to mean that I have no clue what day it is.  At all.  So much so that, as you know, I haven’t sat down to pen a blog post in almost a month.  I feel a little twinge of guilt about that, but again, an identifying premise for this blog is Mommy-imperfection.  So at least I’m nailing that. 

Since I’m convinced that I packed my muse up with the Christmas lights, I’ll show you what the kids and I (the Officer took part for a bit, but had to work the next day, so had to sleep that night) did for New Year’s Eve.  This way all you uber planners will have something up your sleeves for next year.  Or it could be adapted for Valentine’s Day (pink, red, and white balloons with heart confetti – wait, I think I like that idea…).  This year was the first time the three of us made it to midnight; well, the first year I let them try.  The Koala was begging to be allowed to sleep by 11pm.  Begging.  And promptly at 12:10am, they both raced up to bed without having been asked.  The good news is that they did sleep until 11am New Year’s Day…

Partying like it’s 2013

I’m sure you’ve all seen the ideas on pintetrest involving hourly activities in anticipation of midnight.  That’s pretty much what we did; and I have to say that the evening flies by when you have a new activity every hour.  I will keep that in mind for future birthday parties/sleepovers. 

 

I used three different sets of balloons (one for the Koala, one for the Firefly, and one for the adults), each with the same activity inside. I wrote the hour in permanent marker on the outside of the balloon; and every hour, the kids got to pop the balloon and do the activity described inside.  To make each pop more festive, I filled the balloons with glitter and small craft pom-poms.  I expected a shower of sparkly fun...it was more a deluge of glitter in which we had to search for our activity slip.  Ah, well.  I used packing tape and curling ribbons to hang these babies from the ceiling, which was pretty; but I had to take them down before the minis could actually pop them.  For your planning pleasure, I’ve included a list of our activities at the end of this post, as well as a supply list. Be warned – I inhaled copious amounts of glitter trying to blowup balloons, and as they popped. Luckily I can still breathe, so the damage must have been minor; but my lungs did feel off for a few days after.

Also, none of those awesome-mom sites ever tell you how stinkin' hard it is to get a small strip of paper, on which you've written that hour's activity, into a balloon. Trust me, this is exceptionally difficult. It took me a few tries to figure out how to get the glitter in there, too. Most of the early attempts ended with glitter all over the kitchen, me, and anything standing nearby [the poor dog]. 

Activity #1 -- because who doesn't love crazy hair?   

Activities:

4pm: Crazy Hair boutique for NYE2012  [Reality: Mom scrambles to finish decorating, kids help]

5pm: Dinner and Silly String Fight [the kids loved this one]

6pm: Light luminarias and prayer – though a Christmas tradition, we’ve adapted it as our NYE tradition to symbolize that we want our new year to be filled with the light of Christ.

7pm: Playdoh sculpture competition and make ice globes*

My Playdoh rose -- because it's my blog

8pm: Play Hide-and-Seek and Sardines in the dark; and do Fire-crackers [the Officer had to get to bed and I didn’t want to really tick off the neighbors]

9pm: Snack and board game marathon 

10pm: Continue snacking and play Wii as family

11pm: Make hobbit hole and read The Hobbit

12pm: Watch ball drop and throw glitter bags**

 

Supplies:

1.        Balloons

2.       Glitter

3.       Small sparkly pom-poms [in the craft section]

4.      Silly String

5.       Playdoh

6.      Fire-Crackers [or poppers]

7.       Paper bags [we used the white lunch kind]

8.      Tea lights

9.      SMALL balloons

10.    Food coloring

11.     Pin or tack [for popping the balloons]

12.    Board game

13.    Snacks [we had Jordan almonds, popcorn, hot chocolate, Christmas candy]

14.    Sandwich bags

15.    Curling Ribbon

16.    Tape

 Your floor will look like this afterward. 

Don't attempt the glitter portion if you're not big into cleaning glitter off every surface in your home, to include pets and family members and food, for weeks to come. 

Pom-poms would work just fine.

 

*To make ice globes, fill small balloons with water, then add food coloring.  Place the balloons outside (it will need to be below freezing for this to work), cover with snow, and let them sit overnight.  Ours froze, but they were lop-sided.  Also, I would suggest using small balloons and starting with this activity so the globes have time to freeze completely.

**Glitter bags are, quite literally, just smal sandwich bags I filled with glitter and pom-poms that we could throw into the air at midnight.  I tied them with curling ribbon and at the stroke of twelve, we hurled the last of our glitter at one another.  Again, if you aren't a big fan of messes that last for weeks, perhaps a celebratory cup of egg nog would be a good replacement activity.

Manic Monday

The Reading Nook Re-deux
Perhaps you don’t already know that we’re smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo.  Really?  Well, don’t feel bad; I’d forgotten about it too, until my bestie reminded me. 

NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month = a bunch of people who consider themselves to be the next great American Novelist devote all of November to churning out an original novel in 30 days.  There’s a website devoted to it; you log on and track the hours you’ve spent writing and the number of pages you’ve written.  Theoretically, at the end of the month you’ll have an original manuscript (or at least your first draft) ready for publication.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge there isn’t a NaCoPubMo in December (National Contract for Publication Month).  Nonetheless, if one can actually accomplish this feat in 30 days, one could at the very least check off a bucket list item:

ü    Write novel.

True to my usual style, I approached NaNoWriMo thusly:

·         Forgot all about it (for first full week of NaNoWriMo – everyone loves an underdog, right?)

·         Once reminded (by bestie), made grandiose plans to devote myself entirely to finally writing Great American Novel…or something Hollywood would want the rights to

·         Announced plans to Officer, in case he had plans for dinner or clean laundry during the Month of November.  He smiled his special “my wife’s on a mission” smile and backed, rather diplomatically, out of the room being sure to make no sudden movements.

·         Opened laptop and stared at cursor for hours.  Checked pinterest obsessively (in case someone pinned a how-to-write-a-novel-in-20-days, of course!)

·         Revamped writing schedule in light of upcoming holidays.

·         Reworked plot synopsis.  Twice.

·         Succumbed to writer’s block

·         Determined my space (read: kitchen table) was the source of my literary woes.

·         Searched pintetrest for home office ideas and luxury cabins to which an author might escape in order to write NGAN* in 19 days.

·         Wrote a blog post (or three).

·         Painted nails

·         Read another writer’s draft pages.

·         Gave up

·         Searched pintetrest for motivational quotes and changed computer wallpaper

·         Reworked writing schedule, allowing for the fact that I’m two weeks behind everyone else

·         Talked Officer into replacing the reading nook (read: laundry collection site) with command/writing center

·         Went to IKEA.  Got lost.  Emerged two days later with (among other miscellaneous items): 4 table legs, wood with which to fashion a desk top, and a box smaller than my engagement ring’s which purported to hold the makings of a desk chair

·         Built desk (okay, the Officer built the desk, but I tightened the Dickens – literary humor – out of the legs to get it to stop wobbling) and chair.  I deserve a degree in engineering now.

·         Replaced reading nook with writer’s nook

·         Took pictures of said nook and wrote blog post about it

·         Reworked writing schedule.  Again

Hence, in honor of NaNoWriMo, here’s the new Writer’s Nook unveil

Before [as reading nook]

 

After [as writer’s nook]

 

So, dear reader, are you participating in NaNoWriMo or just No-Shave-Novemember?  Either way, enjoy your pre-Thanksgiving week!

 

  *NGAN = next great American novel