My Weekend Away:
Yes, I left my 3 month old with the boy and flew to Texas for an entire weekend.
Thanks to anxiety, I only slept about 2 1/2 hours the night before. Despite leaving a ton of milk, and giving the boy an in depth training on all things baby, as my flight took off, I still wondered if this made me a horrible mom.
The boy had never even done a night shift before. In fact, he’s usually still snoring when I come back from feeding the baby. Which begs the question, does he even know the baby eats at night?
But he offered me a girls weekend and I realize how very rare those are now days, so I took him up. Austin, is always calling my name and is conveniently home to my best friend, Rebecca (I call her Bachers). So I planned a birthday weekend for her, including reservations for a fancy pants dinner followed by a surprise birthday party.
Our Activities:
Upon arriving in Austin, we went directly to a breakfast taco trailer. There are no breakfast tacos in cajun country, therefore I live in deprivation of these magical bundles of chorizo, eggs and cheese all wrapped into a corn tortilla. After that, we went to her apartment and took naps. I know that doesn’t sound cool, but thats what you do when you’re a new mom and a labor and delivery nurse who works night shifts.
Our dinner and adult beverages at Juniper were awesome. We ordered a bunch of small plates. The meatballs even passed my half-italian best friend’s standards.
Then we went onto Prohibition, a “boozy ice cream bar”, where lots of her friends and even her sweet parents came to surprise her with birthday love. Her dad treated me to a scoop of tiramisu boozy ice cream. Texas heat + Booze + ice cream, you can’t go wrong.
The evening was followed by a night of uninterrupted sleep. Ten hours straight. Something I haven’t experienced in at least 6 months. They say laughter is the best medicine, but actually, sleep is the best medicine. Laughter a close second.
Saturday we stuffed our faces with breakfast tacos again and headed out to Dripping Springs to see Bacher’s future home site.
Yes – she just bought a house! Even though they haven’t broken ground on her lot yet, we tested out all the neighborhood amenities like the pool and the gym.
Really, I was the only one that tested the gym. Bachers will never make use of this lovely space, its not her gig.
I SO want to move in.
At sunset, we had a picnic on her lot with thai food and a bottle of wine.
Nature must be the third best medicine. Sunsets, oceans, mountains, rain and snow, nature restores the soul.
Of course, I missed Ray. I did FaceTime him at one point. He was mostly confused.
Heading Home:
On my plane ride back home, I felt certian that a weekend away didn’t make me a bad mom. It made me a balanced mom.
As a mom, its easy to believe that the world hinges on you. The world of your family, at least. That if you’re not there, the sweater will unravel, the bath tub will overflow, the dryer will malfunction and the whole house may explode.
But actually, everyone got along fine.
The boy even woke up to feed the baby his night bottles.
He also bought him “a toy.”
Ray is thrilled by his new graphing calculator, as you can see.
The only negative text I got all weekend, read, “I suck at cloth diapering.”
For a weekend of uninterrupted sleep, swimming in the hill country and breakfast tacos every morning, I don’t care what kind of diapers the baby wears. At all.
I even returned home to a clean house, laundry done and dinner ready. Bottles may not have been put back in the “right” place, and some of the laundry had a wonky new home as well. But who cares, because I got a weekend of the best medicine.
Plus, Ray is loving his new onesie.
Daycare Update:
Ray starts daycare TOMORROW!
This whole time I’ve been fretting about daycare, because their ratio is 6 babies to 1 worker. Which just sounds insane. But guess what? This year there were 13 babies, which forced the school to open up another baby room. They spilt the babies into a group of 6 older babies with 1 teacher and the remaining 7 younger babies (which Ray is a part of) will be taken care of by 2 teachers. So the ratio is almost half of what I was expecting!
Giant relief. Such a blessing.
The teacher also reassured us that, no, our babies will not cry all day. She got our numbers and gave us her cell so that we can text her during the day and vise versa.
I’ll still cry tomorrow, but I feel SO much better. Its an answer to a prayer, I hadn’t even thought to pray. I just assumed that because daycare is a business there would be 12 babies and 2 teachers in the room.
For now, I need to start filling out forms and packing his bag for tomorrow. Updates to follow!
Hope everyone else has had good back to school transitions.
Rachael says
You’re the best mom!!! I’m so glad you got a rejuvenating weekend! Hope that Baby Ray’s first day of daycare went well!!
thegingerlifeblog@gmail.com says
Thanks Rachael! It went wonderful!!
Dina Schroeder says
What a gift ❤ Now your soul is a bit lighter❤
thegingerlifeblog@gmail.com says
It is! Thanks Dina.
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