A Last Minute Escape

The stars aligned on Thursday and I actually peeled out of my driveway, completely alone. The smell of burned rubber filled my car, the radio blared and I had to check twice to make sure there really was an overnight bag resting in the empty back seat. EMPTY BACK SEAT!
I shuttered with glee at the thought of making it far enough away from my house that no matter how much diarrhea or fever or vomit, I couldn't possibly make it back in time to have to clean it up.
Along my drive I realized I hadn't been out of my house since last Saturday. That all of the Christmas Lights in our neighborhood had been taken down and boxed up for another year. That my holiday poinsettias on the front porch have been withered and dead for at least a week. That the year was 2009, I had been a parent now for over 4 years and the last time I had taken an overnight "vacation" (almost completely non-work related) without my children was 2005.
It was 1:07 in the afternoon and I had 28.5 hours to spend with my husband. I was picking him up at work and heading North for one night away.
Okay, so this getaway wasn't completely non-work related either, but with 28.5 hours away from the kids, John's 2 hour meeting didn't seem like much of a sacrifice for a corporate-paid escape. There was the 5 hour drive to Napa, the recommended hotel, the wine bar, the wine, the Spanish Tapas Restaurant, more wine, an ENTIRE night devoid of diapers, binkies, crying, midnight potty breaks, and then the blissful morning. Which I chose to spend standing butt naked in front of one of those terrible magnifying mirrors admiring all the age I had acquired since the last time I enjoyed more than 3 minutes alone in a bathroom. Why the hell do they put those things in hotel bathrooms? Like you need to know that your face has that many flaws???
Out of 28.5 hours, I spent 9.7 hours driving, talking, listening, laughing with my favorite adult and none of it involved singing the Firetruck song or twisting my torso into some tantra yoga pose to reach a dropped sippy cup. In 28.5 hours I did not change one diaper. For 6 hours I drank 4 glasses of excellent red wine (maybe five???). Over 28.5 hours I visited a public restroom 5 times and never once lifted a 40 pound toddler onto the toilet seat while barking the command, "Don't touch anything!" I put my makeup on both sides of my face and changed my earrings three times just because I could. I watched TV. I did not share my lipstick. I never once hunted down a Binky. I reminded myself exactly 4 times how nice it was to be alone with my husband. And for 1.75 hours I shopped, for myself, without a stroller or a hungry whining toddler. And for exactly 28.5 hours I felt absolutely no guilt.
I surely died and went to heaven. When I returned home I stepped out of my kid-free car a new person, a new mom, a new wife. This blissful, appreciative, enthusiastic me is lingering through the weekend. And who knows, maybe even for a year or two...that is, until I get another getaway like this one!

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