Getting Real with Shadra Bruce
Last weekend, Dave and I drove 45 minutes away and spent a night at a hotel near the local mall. It wasn’t the best hotel and it wasn’t the most romantic location. But I had enough points for a free night. The week before, we discovered that our free night certificate that we get for having the hotel credit card was going to expire, so we drove 20 minutes away to stay the night in a hotel in the parking lot of a Chinese Buffet. Also not the most romantic destination.
They were two of the BEST. NIGHTS. OF. MY. LIFE.
We didn’t do anything special. The first night, we grabbed Chinese food and took it back to the room, watched a movie on iTunes, then tuned in to Live PD for the new episode (my one guilty pleasure in the “reality TV” arena). The following weekend, we went out for a nice steak dinner and then went back to the room, curled up on the bed, and watched a movie (and more Live PD).
It wasn’t about what we did. Or where we stayed. Or even what we ate, although the Chinese food was amazing.
It was about the quiet.
We have two teenagers, a newlywed couple, and a nearly-two-year-old toddler living with us.
There is no quiet.
We love it – we truly love that we have our home filled with people we love. But we’re a lot more capable of caring for our crew when we make time for us, because no matter what, when you have six almost-adults and a toddler under one roof, there’s stress, whether you want it or not.
So we went away for a blissful 24 hours, two weekends in a row.
You know what we discovered?
Our kids like it when we leave. They play video games together, watch movies we don’t like, and go to the store and buy pints of ice cream that they eat in one sitting.
They get their own meals and clean up after themselves and even remember to do their laundry.
They bring in the mail and handle the crises and don’t even text us if there’s a problem.
They handle it.
I have more points to use up for free nights. And we have a gift certificate for a free night at a bed and breakfast that the kids got us for Christmas. So, yeah we’re going to get away, as regularly as we can manage.
