It may have been the moment, last week, when I was nearing a complete breakdown due to the high volume of ear-piercing screeching, screaming and running through our house, or finding my wife mumbling and rocking back and forth, with a blank stare, alone in a corner, that prompted the idea for this post. I’m not sure.
Whatever it was (loud crashes through the house, someone waking us up every hour during the night, pee everywhere in the bathroom but the toilet bowl, no food in the pantry because our pre-teens have bottomless pits for stomachs, or the endless mountains of dirty laundry), I decided I would write down some of the glorious things my wife and I are going to do the day after our last kid leaves for college:
(In no particular order)
1. Sleep consecutive hours.
We actually were naive enough, eleven years ago, to believe the book we were reading that told us our children would sleep through the night after 3 months old. That is a lie from the bowels of hell folks! My wife and I are at least a decade behind on sleep. And, much like the national deficit, we aren’t catching up anytime soon. We have decided that we are not really looking for a full-nights sleep anymore…. we’d just like to sleep a few consecutive hours!
2. Repaint the bathroom walls around the toilet.
Why? you ask. Lets just say that since we’ve had boys we’ve spent more time cleaning the floor around the toilet and the walls behind the toilet than the toilet itself. Ready, aim, fire is not a concept that is understood by any of them. Most of the time its, fire, fire, fire even if their pants are still on. Heck, we might as well rip out all of the drywall and start over.
3. Have a full-length conversation with one another.
Have you ever heard someone speak in fragments through a microphone with a dying battery or over a radio because of bad frequency? That’s what most of my conversations with my wife sound like anymore. Except, the interference comes from pint-sized darlings that have to tell us in that precise moment (an inch from our face) that that they are done with their dinner or (for the gazillionth time) they have to use the potty.
4. Drive somewhere.
We don’t even care where. Just somewhere. Because we’ll be able to. And the biggest reason we will just drive somewhere is that it will be the two of us. That’s it! Nobody else. And the biggest thing we will have to worry about is whether or not we turned all the lights in the house off, walked the dog, and locked the door behind us.
There will no longer be epic journey’s to the center of the earth (or our house) to find coats and shoes. Gone will be the arguing at the front door over which seat everyone’s going to sit in. It will be me (or my wife) in the driver’s seat and the other in the passenger seat. That’s it! Shoot, we might even stop along the road and switch drivers just to do it!
5. Eat our own food from our own plate!
This is a biggie. One of the reasons we are both in pretty good shape is not from a regular exercise program (although we do that). It’s because food on our plates at our dinner table is consumed pretty quickly. And it would be awesome if it were by us. It’s not. Somewhere, in the split second it takes the two of us to glance around the table to make sure everyone has what they need, the food on our plate disappears, never to be seen again! But one of these days, in our wildest dreams, we will be able to eat that elusive food that started off on our plate, only to end up in someone else’s belly!
I love my life. I really do! And I love my children. They are one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Besides, they are giving me tons of writing material every single day of their precious lives.
What are some of your dreams or fantasies the day after your kids move out? Don’t worry, it’s okay to dream and have a little fun. That’s all this post is about. Just don’t get all crazy and lost in your fantasy that you kick them out before they graduate high school or finish kindergarten!
