Over the river
and through the woods to grandma’s house we go.
Well, it was more like load all your crap into the minivan and hit the highway
(Six in one, half dozen in the other)! Destination,
Grammy’s house, away, in the big city of Buffalo. It is one of my favorite times of year, our
kid FREE week. Please don’t get me
wrong, I love my daughter and I love spending family time together but honestly
EVERYONE can use a break that is guilt free.
This year, I was overjoyed to drop her off, honestly I was on overload
from sleepovers, carpooling to swim lessons and my daughter’s new summer
schedule (I'll do whatever I want whenever I want to do it). It was definitely a good time for a break in
our normal schedule. Every year our
daughter goes to visit her grandparents for a week in the summer, it’s a
tradition and I love it. It’s a win win
situation. My daughter gets the
experience of spending quality time with her grandparents while running them
into the ground (trust me they need a week or so recovery time). The bigger win, I feel, is that we get some adult
time.
I don’t know
about you but it’s hard to remember what we did before we had a family. I know there have been countless times when
we have time together when we look at each other and say,” what do you want to
do? I don’t know, what to you want to
do?” and it goes on and on. As a stay at
home mom and wife, most of my days are consumed with the needs of my
family. Cleaning the house, making
breakfast, lunch & dinner, making sure we have clean clothes to wear and
food in the refrigerator, acting as a taxi service for the nine year old and
just your run of the mill family stuff (don’t
be jealous of me, I’m living the dream she said in a sarcastic tone). So, as
every parent out there knows how valuable a week without kids would be, and I
only have one kid (GOD bless you crazy parents with a basketball team worth of
kids, I feel guilty even writing this blog since I only have one child). This year’s kid free week was almost better
than any vacation away because I didn’t have the stress of packing or getting
organized, there was no planning or scheduling, it was PERFECTION. I just
organically let things happen. It took me a few days of wondering what to do
with myself before I finally settled into the idea that I didn’t have to do
ANYTHING, unless I wanted to. I had
large aspirations as to what I would get done during the week. Clean the basement, reorganize the kitchen
cabinets, build new shelves in my closet, steam clean the carpets and really
get the house in tip top shape. I said aspirations,
right!! I realized, there will be plenty
of time for all those things, in the future.
I realized a week of “me time” is not a race to get things done that
I’ve been meaning to do. That is what I
have done in past years, and then the week is over and I think why didn’t I
just sit back put my feet up and read a good book? It’s the guilt of not getting something
accomplished or feeling like I have a thousand things I should be doing.
Women seem to
get wrapped up in the idea that once we are mothers that is who we are and we
forget what is was like to be an adult.
Mother’s seem to carry so much guilt and taking time for ourselves is
just another one of those guilt trips.
Working mothers have guilt that they are missing out on your children’s
lives, while stay at home mothers tend to put all of our energies into our
children and have guilt because we are not out making money for the family. I don’t think we can win. Once we become parents, we all forget what it
was like before. We had adult lives, we
did adult things and we didn’t have any guilt when we were doing them. That is how my week went without my daughter;
a completely GUILT free, who gives a shit if the bed isn’t made, kind of week.
Perhaps Audre
Lorde said it best when she was quoted saying, “I have come to believe that
caring for myself is not self-indulgent.
Caring for myself is an act of survival.” She must have been a mother too! For some
reason we live in a culture that makes us feel guilty when we put our own needs
first. Guilt is a useless feeling that
only eats away at us internally and does NO good for anyone. Wanting to do things without our kids doesn’t
make us bad parents; it makes us better parents, in my opinion. We should all put ourselves first once in a
while; it’s good for kids to see that they aren’t always the center of the universe and you are a human being too, not just MOM or
DAD.
During my
quilt-free no-kid week I went on a date to the movies, on a Monday night (who
does that?), had breakfast in bed (ok so it was ice cream but we ate it for
breakfast), made chocolate covered strawberries for no reason at all (just
because they are my favorite), spent 1 whole guilt free day watching movies with
my husband, took a ride in our boat to a
restaurant for lunch, spent quality adult time with some friends drinking wine
on their deck, kayaked on the lake with some of my girlfriends, ate out every
night for one whole week (yes, that means there was NO COOKING, at all), read a
book, had a quick weekend getaway to Niagara Falls with my husband, went thrift
store shopping for NO reason at all and I didn’t make the bed any day the whole
week! I also skipped the dishes and laundry too! It was an extremely awesome week and I didn’t
accomplish a thing but I sure cleared my head.
I guess no responsibility will do that to you?
So for me, I do
not look at my “me time” as self-indulgent, I do look at it as a necessity or a
way of survival. Parents get so caught
up in our children’s lives; I think we forget to take care of ourselves
physically and mentally. After my “me time”
I am so much more refreshed and am most definitely a better mother and wife, so
why oh why do we feel so guilty? For
those of you who are parents, please make sure you make time for yourself. Not everyone is a fortunate as me and can
ship the kids off to grandma’s for a whole week but carve out some time for
yourself, even if it’s an hour. Don’t
forget you are an adult and it’s ok to NOT want to watch the movie Frozen for
the 30th time, you don’t have to feel guilty. Parents need to remember that our well-being
and good mental health make us better parents.
Spend some quality adult time with your significant other. The good news about my daughter’s trip away
to the big city is that she comes back a little more refreshed too. After all she got away from us too, her
nagging parents. Trust me everyone needs
a break once in a while. It gave me a
clean slate, and a better perspective on life, and it reminded me I am a woman
and not just a mom. Carving out ‘me time”
once in a while has become my act of survival.
Give it a try, put yourself first, try to remember who you were and what
you enjoyed doing before you had a family and do it without a care in the world,
trust me, you’ll thank me.
I would like to send a shout out to both
sets of my daughter’s grandparents! We
are so very lucky to have you in our daughter’s life, your willingness to take
on your granddaughter makes our lives that much easier and it doesn’t go
unnoticed. I am truly grateful, you help
keep my sanity and it gives me the opportunity to do so many things free of
guilt! Thank you and I love you!
