#MomVacation

The other night my friend Audrey and I were discussing my impending trip, and after I hung up I couldn’t stop laughing. Oh god, how things have changed.

Before having a child I would have been looking forward to the white sand beaches, endless ocean swims, the buffets, the drinks. I would be reading up on the locale, the activities, shopping for my travel wardrobe.

Now? Now the highlights look like this:

Audrey: Are you getting excited for Mexico?

Me: Oh god, I haven’t really thought about it. Shit! I leave in four days! I should pack I guess.

Audrey: Have you even realized that you are going to be spending a week by yourself?

Me: [silence as I contemplate this fact]

Audrey: A WEEK! When was the last time you spent a week by yourself?

Me: Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever spent a week by myself.

Audrey: Maddie, think about the plane.

Me: The PLANE! Holy shit, I get to be by myself on a plane!

Audrey: You don’t have to juggle a kid and a stroller and a car seat and luggage through customs and security, you don’t have to pack a million snacks and activities…

Me: I don’t have to change a poopy diaper in a tiny airplane bathroom or make juice cups dance for entertainment…

Audrey: You get to have your own plane anxiety instead of worrying about soothing someone else’s!

Me: My god. My VERY OWN plane anxiety!

Audrey: You can nap, Madeleine. You can NAP.

Me: And I will. I WILL nap!

Audrey: And you can take as long as you want to get ready without someone screaming at you and eating your makeup.

Me: I’ll look like a real person!

Audrey:A.REAL.PERSON.

Me: Holy fuck. This is going to be awesome.

 

And it continued like this. In the whole half hour discussion we never really got past the plane ride and the napping and the getting ready and the eating with two hands. I could be going to Nowhere, Arkansas at this point and my excitement level would be the same (off the charts, obviously).

For the past week I have been frantically trying to finish a crafty wedding present surprise for my two lovebird friends, and I can’t wait to show you – I think I may have a new hobby. It fits in perfectly with this new spinster image I’ve been wholeheartedly cultivating. I’m thinking severe buns, perhaps a rocking chair. Cats! Do I need cats? I need to research this more thoroughly. (Advice from fellow crones and spinsters eagerly appreciated.)

Also, because of all of this FREE. TIME. I am anticipating having, I am bringing some work with me, like a boss. I’m hoping to make some headway on a project I’ve been thinking about for a while, as well as getting the framework in place for the room-by-room GreenHouse series I talked about a few weeks ago. I’m so glad you guys were so excited about it! I think the hardest part of any new venture is getting started, so hopefully this with pave the way and make it easier to be Eco-friendly without going broke or crazy (or both).

If all goes well and I don’t abandon my laptop for a grueling regimen of mojitos and drooling facedown in the sand (I make no promises), I am hoping to begin the series in early-mid May. The perfect little nudge to kick start your spring cleaning!

In other news, if you follow my over-sharing on Instagram you may have noticed that we moved over the weekend. It’s been a whirlwind of packing and loading and unloading and unpacking – I’m exhausted and trying to catch up with sleep and kidney medication to get ahead of things.

I’ll do a little tour later once we are all settled, but so far I am in love. We are renting the perfect little Madeleine house, complete with creaky old hardwood floors, a fireplace, original kitchen cabinets and the sweetest little cutout closets and crystal doorknobs. Olive has adjusted really well to the move, and is loving her new big backyard. On Tuesday we completed the most important part of moving to a new place – getting our library cards. Nothing makes a house more like home than a fat stack of crinkly-plastic bound library books.

Now, for lack of a better way to wrap up this very random amalgamation of topics, I shall leave you with a little vignette of toddler life.

The other day I was dropping Olive off to my dad so he could watch her for an hour while I went grocery shopping to stock our fridge. Olive hadn’t been sleeping well in the days leading up to the move, and had been pretty grouchy with people as a result, so I was reminding her how to act.

Me: Olive, you’re going to go play with Pop Pop, and I would like you to remember to speak kindly, use your manners, and no screaming, OK?

Olive: Yes, OK, mummy. And I not even smack him in the face!

Me: …right. Yes. Don’t smack him in the face, either.

 

Sooo, I think this means I am basically killing it at this whole “parenting” thing. You’re welcome.