Mom's Weekend Away

Blinds down and misc. mess

Leaving kids with the hubby is hard for any recovering supermom!  My husband's reassuring words to me are, "They'll survive."  I have my doubts!  I mean, no one can survive on macaroni and cheese, cereal, chips, chocolate milk and ice cream for long!  They really should do a documentary entitled, "Dad's Food Inc."  The first time I left my kids with my husband overnight, I made out a color coded excel spreadsheet displaying the meals, the meal times, snacking options, and daily schedule which included what types of games to play which days, nap times, bed times, book titles, etc...  You'd think I was leaving my kids with a monkey! I forgot to mention that I had prepared the meals and had labeled them in the fridge.  I was pretty sure my kids would be eating paint chips or making bark bread if I didn't prepare for my absence.

Thankfully, I'm recovering now from my neurosis and I'm happy to report that I'm on my way to a full recovery!  This past weekend I went on a retreat from Friday night until Sunday afternoon.  I was scheduled to make ONE meal the whole weekend and I was partnered up with a TEAM of people who would work alongside me to feed slightly more people than I normally feed.  On a given weekend I feed my family ONE HUNDRED times! (okay, not one hundred, but it is somewhere upwards of 10 times, if you include snack times).  Also I only did dishes and unloaded the dishwasher twice! The whole weekend!

Torn up cracker boxes???

In order to prepare my family for my absence,  the only things I did were clean the house and make pulled pork in my new crock pot which my friends gave me for my 40th birthday in October (I know, shock and awe, how did I survive).  I also called my husband to make sure he picked up my daughters from ballet and soccer.  But, hey, I've come a long way from color coded excel spreadsheets!

After an amazing weekend of rest, relaxation, reflection and training, I came home earlier than I think I was expected.  The house was amazing, my kids really stepped up and kept it clean the whole weekend.  HA HA, no way!  There were things around the house I can't even figure out what they were being used for!  The pile of shredded cereal and cracker boxes, the aluminum foil on the couch, dirty bowls with forks stuck to the carpet, a chair in the middle of the living room, wrappers, computers, dirty socks, toys, a wooden spoon (I can guess what that was used for) and the kicker, my blinds were laying on the ground!  That was just the living room.  In the kitchen, the crock pot I cooked the pulled pork in from Friday was still sitting on the counter with bacteria ridden remains. It was painful for me to take pictures.

Tin foil on couch?

The old me would have blown the blood vessels in my eyes out. I would have lectured (okay yelled, maybe even screamed) at my kids about their messiness and the importance of responsibility.  It would have been an award winning speech that moms around the world would be able to replicate.  It would be translated into all the major languages and kids would be transformed into cleaning beasts! (eye rolling is not a valid way to determine the effectiveness of a lecture).  It would be a lie to say I laughed it off and said "Oh well."  I started cleaned up and rehearsing speeches I would give, but in the end I chose to hug my kids and tell them I missed them.  Someday, I won't be cleaning their messes and although I think that will make my life easier, it's bitter sweet because my kids will be grown and I won't be able to hug them every day.

So today, I will choose to look at their messes as reminders that their time with me is short, the mess in temporary, but love will last...oh yeah, and they survived :)