Mommy Brain

“Husband and wife can and should go off on vacations alone and also on vacations alone together. For if it is possible that woman can find herself by having a vacation alone, it is equally possible that the original relationship can sometimes be refound by having a vacation alone together. Most married couples have felt the unexpected joy of one of these vacations. How wonderful it was to leave the children, the house, the job, and all the obligations of daily life; to go out together, whether for a month or a weekend or even just a night in an inn by themselves. How surprising it was to find the miracle of the sunrise repeated. There was the sudden pleasure of having breakfast alone with the man one fell in love with. Here at the small table, are only two people facing each other. How the table at home has grown! And how distracting it is, with four or five children, a telephone ringing in the hall, two or three school buses to catch, not to speak of the commuter’s train. How all this separates one from one’s husband and clogs up the pure relationship. But sitting at a table alone opposite each other, what is there to separate one? Nothing but a coffee pot, corn muffins and marmalade. A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one’s husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.”

from A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Saturday is Kevin’s birthday, but we will be celebrating early. Friday afternoon I am dropping the kids (all four!) off at my mom and dad’s house and then meeting Kevin after work. We’ll go out to dinner and then possibly to a movie or swimming and then come home to a quiet house. We’ll get in all that conversation that we’ve been saving up because life’s been so crazy lately. I can’t wait.