Before becoming a parent, I was totally behind the idea that sometimes, you just need to get away from your troubles for awhile to sort of hit the “refresh” button on your life. And Matt and I were fairly good at taking those breaks—we usually took a vacation together over spring break, we (okay, I) took mental health days off when my teaching job became too much to handle, and we often slipped in several date nights a month (even though you could count most nights as date nights since we were usually at home together just the two of us).
I thought that once I became a parent, I would become desperate with the need to get away on a regular basis—I thought that I would jump at any chance I could to take a break from some of the 24/7 responsibilities of parenthood.
But you know what?
I’ve been surprised that it’s harder to take those times away than I thought it would be. And I’m not just talking logistically (although that’s obviously going to be harder than it was before, when we were childless)—I mean that whenever we’re able to take an overnight trip somewhere together, just the two of us, I think we’re both surprised at how much we miss Raven, and how we can never really “escape” our responsibilities as parents (nor do we want to).
That being said, I do think it’s important for us to make the effort to occasionally “get away” from it all—
It’s important that we take time out with just the two of us, to shake ourselves of the daily routine once in awhile and experience new things together.
I think it’s important to remind ourselves that we are people outside of just Dad and Mom, Husband and Wife—-we are individuals who love to try new restaurants (even though one of the places we tried this anniversary was a complete bust, prompting me to leave my first negative Trip Advisor review ever), who love to take leisurely walks along random trails, who enjoy taking the time to explore new places and see new things.
Two weekends ago, thanks to my mom’s offer to take Raven, we were able to escape overnight to the place where we spent the first night of our honeymoon (and where’s we’ve returned since then in years past because we loved it so much).
We were able to have lots of talks in the car about our future plans and watch cheesy chick flicks in the room we were staying in (while we waited for the rain to let up) and take some short walks along trails we found on the side of the road. It was good, for once, not to feel tied to a schedule, to not worry about getting back at a certain time in order to stay on track with Raven’s bedtime or mealtimes. It was good to stay up until nearly midnight reading in bed, because we didn’t have to worry about being woken up around 7 a.m. the next morning.
But boy, it sure was nice too to get back and wrap up that sweet little girl of ours into our arms and hear of her adventures while we’d been away.
(Oh, and it was nice to get back into our little habit of taking kissing pictures out on our adventures again—when we were first married and traveling to various locations on different vacations, we would always make sure to get at least one picture of us kissing. When Raven came along, that became a lot harder to accomplish logistically, but it was nice to kind of resurrect for this trip.)
Thanks to my hubby (and to my mom) for a great weekend getaway!
