On Missing Children.

My husband and I have rarely been away from our kids for more than a day or so but recently embarked on a long trip without them. It is exhilarating to travel unencumbered by extra bags and car seats and a extra duffel bag filled solely of goldfish crackers and fruit leathers. To realize that we only need to be accountable to our own wants for a few days.

The first hour or so of our drive was spent laughing and joking and feeling like we were kids playing hooky from school. But then my husband said, “ remember the fortune cookie last night?” And we both cracked up remembering my five year old son revealing to us that he may have “eaten the paper” by accident. And then I remembered how my eight year old was putting on sunscreen a few days ago and yelled, “ew! Gross! This sunscreen smells like the eighties!” My two year old does the funniest dance to pump himself up when he pees.

When I come home from work everyone runs to the door to and yells “guess what..!” “Can I show you…!” “Come see..!” I won’t even have put my bag down, let alone have walked through the threshold of the door. I can tell you it’s the best feeling to be have people be that excited to see you. But then you notice you have to vacuum because there is an unknown substance crushed on the floor and someone needs water filled right now and someone else still wants to show you something and can you make a snack? What’s for dinner? Seriously, why haven’t you filled the water bottle yet? And is that the two year old or the dog who peed right there? And then you realize you are trying to calmly say that everyone needs to hold up because mom can’t do everything immediately and everyone needs to take one step back and give her five seconds to put her bag down.

Gosh, I miss my kids so much. Even going to work I miss them. I want to share all the silly and cute and weird things they do with everyone.

But, seriously, give me a second to put my bag down.