empty praise

It’s a little silly that I haven’t been here for awhile. This morning I noticed a similar trend in my journal: my last three journal entries were March 2nd, April 2nd, and now, today, May 2nd. Hmmm. Just a coincidence. (For all my friends who love LOST as much as I do, if that is even possible, then maybe we could come up with a theory about why those numbers…)

So here I am, 8:30 on a Saturday night, back in action. (Yes, some self-depricating sarcasm is to be noted.) But here’s the thing: I am at the beach with my husband. In a couple of hours we will go to bed for the second night in a row, without our children in the same house! (Insert a Tiger fist pump here.)

Boy do I ever love those boys. But today has been…supremely wonderful. Despite one seagull sounding alarmingly similar to Calum at 6am this morning, I slept in until a whopping 7:30 and stayed in bed for as long as I wanted. This ended up not being very long since I was like a kid at Christmas, ready to get my day going. My day of doing NOTHING. No mouths to feed other than mine. No time-outs. No discipline. No poopy butt to wipe. Quietness. (Well, except for the fact that we indulged in HGTV, the Golf tournament, Game 7 of Celtics-Bulls, Palladia and “What Not to Wear.”) I finished the book that I started in July 2008 here at the beach. I sat on the couch, A LOT.

Nate and I talked about nothing of importance. No ‘family business’, no ‘church business’, no ‘what are we doing with our lives?’ business, no ‘what should we do about this kid-issue?’… We just hung out. (The sectional here at the beach house is so big that as we stake out our corner seats, we actually have about 5 feet between us. It’s rather humorous.)

I think this is about the most refreshing thing we have done for ourselves in a long time.

One of the best things about this weekend is that going into it, I missed the kids the moment we were pulling out of the driveway and yet, I knew that I needed to miss them even more than that. I have needed some space and I have needed to slow down. I don’t know how to do that with a four year old and one year old. (Especially since the one year old has about an equal amount of physical capabilities as the four year old, minus the caution or ability to obey.)

If anyone else is an introverted (INTJ to be exact) mom, who works an average of 15 hours a week along with being ’stay-at-home’ with the boys, and who is somewhat of a control-freak (humor me and agree with me that I’m only ’somewhat’), and who is trying to go to the gym four-five times a week, and who likes a (“negotatiated” version) of a ‘clean’ house, and who is involved with her husband in serving on a Worship advisory team at their church, and who strives to bring those token traits of ‘consistency’ and ‘discipline’ into the mix of raising children who have character, and who always is yearning for more time with girlfriends… Well, if any of you have some ideas about how to make the whole ‘mental space’ thing more of a regular reality, then let me know.

Last Saturday, a kind friend (with grown adult children) offered to take me out for coffee in the morning. One of her first questions was, “Do you feel like everyone wants a piece of you?” Hmmm… either it’s that obvious or it’s that common for this “stage” (whatever that means)… or maybe it’s both. That’s why I’m so elated to be at the beach. I have been able to be silly and quiet and lazy and put some pieces in place. It’s been wonderful and more than anything, I pray that this filled up tank is blessed with the same miraculous blessing as when Jesus touched the two fish and loaves of bread and it fed thousands upon thousands. In other words, I hope that this little time of refreshing goes a long way. I say that hopefully, optimistically even. I really think it will. I’m not naïve, so I am already thinking that we’ll have some behavioral issues tomorrow upon return, but the difference will be I’m not crazy, stressed out, “exorcist” mom. (The link is to a great post I read on The Mommy Revolution a few weeks back.)

I think I’m learning about choices, perspective, attitude, and thankfulness. Here’s how I know I am making a little progress: Upon leaving our children with Nate’s parents for the weekend (not even a full two days, actually) I didn’t write out one iota of ‘instructions’ or anything of the sort. Of course, I communicated a few details about what I packed for them, what time we’ve been putting them to bed, and that we brought over Calum’s milk. Other than that, I left their well being and routine and projected needs in the hands of the boys very capable, very loving, very aware, very nurturing grandparents. My mother-in-law gave me a huge hug and said, “I am so proud of you!” Some of you might think this is crazy, and why would that even be a big deal? Let’s just say that it’s a big deal.

So tonight, I think I’m on my way to some better days. And maybe that will mean that I actually return to blog at some point before the summer is over.