No Kids

             
As I mentioned, my oldest daughter was at music camp last week. On Thursday, my youngest got invited to go to a friend's lake house for the weekend. Before I continue...let me just say this. My kids are living some kind of dream life that I don't even know about.

My husband and I were like, "Wait! That means no kids for 2 whole days!" That never happens. When you have one kid you can get a few days alone. Two or more kids? Forget it. The stars need to align for them both to be out of the house at the same time. What to do?

The next morning, we got invited to a party. Is was meant to be. We do go out or stay in with friends about once every 2 months but we can never stay out too late because we always have kids the next day or something to do. Not this weekend. We were so excited.

I cleaned my house got my hair cut. My husband came home from work and we had dinner alone together in our own house. It was a little strange. "Is this what it's going to be like when the kids are out of the house?"

We got ready to go. I played inappropriate music. Loudly. In my house. I felt like such a rebel. I put on a dress and heels that I never get to wear.

We had such a good time. We have a really fun group of friends. We had drinks and were dancing all night long. Now, I'm not a big drinker. Never have been. For instance, when we went on vacation I had 1 glass of wine and 1 cocktail on the ship. The ENTIRE time. So, when I do have drinks - it doesn't take a lot to get me feeling happy.

This is a normal person after 3 shots:


This is me after 1 wine cooler:

Even my husband was dancing. We were a little out of control. All of us middle aged parents, cutting the rug to some Chaka Khan. We're old. It was one o'clock in the morning - which is 4 hours past my bedtime and our friends decided to go to breakfast. We went to Denny's and I ordered a pancakes, sausage, eggs, toast, hash browns....a ridiculous amount of food. I made sure to eat exactly half so that I could eat the rest the next day.

They dropped us off after 2 am. I don't know if I've ever been out until 2 am. We went home and I put the leftovers in the fridge, chugged a bottle of water and 2 ibprofen and went to bed.

The next day, I woke up. The room was bright. I looked at the clock - it was 10 am. It took me a minute to remember what happened. Who am I? I can count the number of times I've slept until 10 am in the past 13 YEARS on one hand. Seriously, if I sleep until 8 or 9 I feel like I wasted the day. I was confused, this was not something that I experience in my life.

I feel great, I said surprised. Then, I got out of bed and I thought, Oh man! I'm too old for this. I remembered that I had Denny's in the fridge. I went downstairs and heated up my food and then sat on the couch and watched Netflix. My husband wasn't far behind. He looked gray. We sat on the couch and ate our leftovers. It was quiet. No children came around to ask us to drive them somewhere or to buy them something or sit in between us.

At noon, I decided that I was still pretty tired. So I went upstairs and took a nap. Because f*ck it! I had no responsibilities. I crawled into bed and woke up 2 hours later. That's when I realized- Holy Sh*t! This is what people without kids can do. This is their life.

Now, I'm not saying anything bad about people without kids. I'm not. I'm just fascinated by their lives. Like, they can just decide to go to the store. They don't have to pack up kids- or in my case, inform my children of where I'm going or when I will be back. Even if I run to the corner store, I still get text messages from my kids.

CAN YOU GET RAZORS? OREOS?
WTH? YOU SAID YOU WOULD BE BACK 5 MINS AGO.
CAN YOU TAKE ME ICE SKATING WHEN YOU GET BACK?

They can just go to the store, and take as much time as they want and no one bothers them. Childless people can just go out to dinner on a whim. They can go on regular dates. They can poop without someone standing at the bathroom door and asking you questions.

They have disposable income. They can just buy things for themselves. What even is that? Between vacation, flute camp, music camp, gymnastics camp, both my girls birthdays, marching band fees, monthly braces payments, gymnastic fees, AND the two chromebooks I had to buy them for school next year I am like
                      
Like, I could seriously be driving a Benz but I drive a Kia. I hope they aren't expecting a lot for Christmas this year. They are getting a book and underwear.

What are the childless people doing with all this spare time and energy? Do they appreciate this life of luxury? Do they even realize?

While it was nice to get a responsibility-free 2 days, I wouldn't trade my life. I am tired as crap. I'm out of money. I generally am consumed with driving them around, cooking them meals, cleaning their clothes....BUT I LOVE these kids. They are so freaking cool. They are smart, amazing and fun to be around. They've brought an endless amount of joy to me. I always tell people that I'm glad I had kids young because I get to know them pretty much my WHOLE life.

I didn't get to party in my youth but I don't think I missed out AT ALL. We are STILL young. I will be 40 when my youngest goes to college. THEN, we will get to have our childless time. Except it will be better because we will have more money and life experience than we did in our 20s. But we will still have our sh*tty 40-something bodies, so I guess that is the trade off. Oh well, you can't have it all.

The kids are back now and we are back to real life. We're taking an impromptu day trip to the Biltmore, the kids have their regular scheduled activities, my husband will be out of town next week, there are birthday parties to prep for, maybe a beach day?