5 Days

What I learned in 5 days...

• My house is very, very quiet when there are no children in it. Eerily quiet. Empty. Like something is missing. Something is missing. 2 somethings. Or someones.
• Eric and I should not wait so long to have extended time alone together again. 13 months is too long.
• 5 days spent at home with only your spouse makes you think extensively about the future and what it will be like some day to have an empty nest.
• 5 days spent at home with only your spouse feels like the beginning of your marriage, when it was just you two against the world, when you were free to do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. So you do whatever you want whenever you want and you realize, you could get used to it. But? You don't want to. Yet.
• Because I am, through and through, a mom and homemaker even when my children are gone, productivity must be a part of every single day unless someone tells me to STOP! Thank you Eric for an afternoon of scrapbooking.
• Mopping the entire 900ish square feet of the downstairs of our house on day 1 of 5 days without the children results in clean floors for 5 whole days. And clean feet.
• There is a delicate balance between desperately missing my children and desperately enjoying the fleeting minutes alone with my husband.
• My children missed me. Terribly. Their response when they saw us (and when they saw me mid-week) assures me of this. I. Love. Hugs. And kisses. And snuggles.
• Picnics at the park are much better when you don't have any time constraints.
• You can get burger baskets for so cheap at Steak and Stein on Tuesday that you don't have to feel guilty about not making the meal at home. You couldn't make the same meal for that price.
• 5 days goes very, very slowly and very, very quickly at the same time. An oxymoron? Most assuredly not, and completely so.