Every Mommy deserves a little break from time to time. Does this mean we don't enjoy being Mommy's to our Littles? No, of course not! It means that our "job" is so taxing on our minds, bodys and souls that a little break away can sometimes revamp a heart to be eager to come back "to it all" again. My heart breaks and melts on a consistant basis, and generally, this is not part of a lot of jobs out there. Also, there are plenty of jobs that stretch into the wee hours of the night, or extend into weekends on occasion, but motherhood never ends. Ever. A blessing? Of course! Tiring, yes. Usually, all I need is every few weeks a 3-hr stretch of grocery or household shopping in town by myself. But every once in awhile I get away for a longer stretch and boy oh boy am I am grateful for those times!! It truly does make me eager to get back home by the time I am ready, I do miss the Girlies, but I can also admit that I get worn down like any other Mom out there and I can become a lazy irritable Mommy if my days begin to run together.
A few weeks back I went on a little day out by myself, with no real plans. Aaron anticipates he won't see me until it's dark out...which is nice he's not frantic at the surprise if my 3-hrs actually take 12. I began my day garage saleing...is that the right term? I have never in my life been "garage saleing"...but I had some cash and thought it'd be fun! Found a couple good buys! Then I headed out to lunch, by myself, made by someone else, cleaned up by someone else. This is sometimes my favorite part of being alone. Food with no prep work, clean up or other's to feed! I know that sounds lazy, I really don't mind cooking for my family, but it's nice to have a break every so often. It feels like a special treat, even if I just get fast food. Then I went to one of my favorite places to shop.........one hour away from home. A nice quiet drive in the country to get there, it was lovely! Then I had a decaf starbucks frappacino....another treat for this girl who never orders herself a coffee! Then I did some calling around and compared prices and got a pedicure!!! Oh boy, what a nice thing to do for yourself. I hadn't had one in years, it was just as relaxing as I remember. Then I ate some sushi (fake kind for de bebe), and drove my pretty little toed self back home.
Then a few weeks after that my sis-in-law, Lily, and I were talking about how fun it would be to go away for a night together....that lead to us almost instantly booking a hotel at the nearby casino for a big night away. (Her first since her honeymoon 7 yrs ago--woo-hoo!!!!)
We . had . a . BLAST!
We ate their fabulous famous buffet. Oh boy. It was delicious. I won't tell you how many times we went back for more, but at one point they cleared our table & drinks assuming we must be done...then we came back carrying our plate of desserts. :) I'm not going to lie, I had a Dr. appointment that morning, and another one the following week....and I had gained ONE pound in a week, most likely due to our plates upon plates of deliciousness.
(also...for those that don't know, one pound in a week is a lot at this stage of pregnancy...since, ya know the baby didn't even weigh a pound yet...so I can't blame it on baby weight...just Piggy Mommy weight, apparently)
Then we spent quite a while wondering around the casino looking very confused. We'd try a slot machine, then lose instantly...try another one win a few times...we had no idea how they worked. haha! We spent a good portion of our time very confused as to how we were losing or winning?!
Besides the fact that we look really young
(right? right?? please tell me we're not past that stage yet...), and the combination of literally looking very confused....we were surprised no one came by and carded us, since there are a bazillion cameras in that place. No joke. A bazillion.
Then we found two machines in the non-smoking section side-by-side that seemed to treat us well. For staying in the casino hotel we were each given a $5 voucher for the casino games, so with that $5, plus only another $5 of our own money, we really were fairly smart about it..... Other than not cashing out when I was ahead...dangit! I came out with about $18....but spent the last $3 ones they gave me on the walk out...and lost them in a matter of seconds. It was sad how fast I lost that, yikes. So...correction...I walked out with $15, and Lily won $25 I think? Not bad for our first time ever. I had more cash in my purse but Lily convinced me otherwise....smart girl. Once we lost our last few bucks, cashed out what we had won, we were pretty tired so we ventured back to the hotel room. It was only 10:30pm!! haha We were both sure we'd be out late "living it up", but after that delicious meal our tummy's were pretty full and smelling that smokey casino for too long was making our beds call us that much more.
We ended up staying up until 130am or so just talking about everything imaginable. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of laughing! And thankfully we were still awake that late because right before 1am the smoke alarm started blaring in our room!! I peeked out the hallway and saw others doing the same. No doubt someone was lighting it up in their non-smoking room. It just added to the excitement of "getting away", so we didn't mind that much. :)
The next morning we had breakfast, checked out and headed to the beach, about 30min away! It was an absolutely beautiful day at the beach!!! I didn't take a single picture but it was lovely. We went to the outlets and of course being away from our children didn't stop us from talking about them and shopping for them! :) We found some cute things for them and for ourselves. Ate some lunch, then headed back home. We had such a fun time. At one point in our getaway I started to say how I thought we should plan to do this.....
and Lily interrupted.. "Every 3 months!" I was going to say once a year...but okay!!!! haha :)
It was a hilarious reality check coming back into my house because I had two very adorable very eager and happy girls come running to hug me and then all of a sudden things went completely haywire and they both were crying pushing eachother away and demanding I hold them separately... Oh boy. As I sat on the couch with each little monkey hanging off of each of my shoulders and kicking eachother (and me) with their little feet, as I tried to explain to Aaron what a wonderfully relaxing fun time we had just had......All I could do was laugh.
Welcome home Mom!!!
Has it been three months yet??
