Yes, for the first time in three years (not counting when I was hospitalized for the birth of the little guys), I spent a night away from home ALL BY MYSELF. Well, not technically all by myself. But, without husband, kids, etc....
The family and I had to be in Winnipeg for a few days, and while we were there, Mark encouraged me to plan a quick trip down to Grand Forks. A girlfriend agreed to come along for a little shopping and a little relaxing. She is nursing her super sweet 7 month old, so baby had to come along. But I got to leave my guys at home! Saint Mark successfully single-parented all three kids while I was gone, with the help of his good friend and my parents. (Thank you guys for helping make this mama getaway happen!)
I haven't been down to the States for awhile, so I was super excited, for many reasons. Reason number one: SLEEPING!!!! I was super pumped to sleep through the night.
Now, I have to say, I probably have not had an uninterrupted sleep since before Rylen was born. No joke. Rylen has never been a stellar sleeper, and then the triplet pregnancy pretty much ruined any chance of me sleeping more than an hour or two at a time. So, I was REALLY looking forward to getting to sleep, by myself, in a nice big soft bed, and not having to wake up. Our baby companion is a pretty good sleeper, so that was not a factor. Nothing was going to ruin my good sleep!
And, sleep I did! I passed out actually. Pretty sure a tornado could have ripped through the hotel and I would have been blissfully unaware. The bed was so nice and fluffy and I knew that I didn't have any kids to be responsible for, so I was able to get into a super deep sleep. I actually woke up on my own (ie: no kid jumping on me or baby crying to get my attention) feeling refreshed.
And then... guess what?
I had a HOT cup of coffee. (that's right: HOT. Not "sort of warm", or "made three hours ago but will drink it anyway cause I really need the caffeine"... this cup was HOT)
Wow. I forgot what THAT was like!
So, that was pretty much the best part of the trip. That, and shopping at leisure without kids in the cart. That was pretty cool too.
One thing I couldn't escape, was my beloved breast pump. Still had to lug that sucker around (no pun intended) and have regular dates. But that was okay, because I just pumped when my friend fed her baby and it all worked out. Thankfully when crossing the border, nobody searched the vehicle to find a cooler full of breast milk. I wouldn't want to have to "prove" that it was milk and not some illegal substance!
Anyways, my friend and I had a great time. We laughed about how much times had changed: 5 years ago a similar shopping trip would have involved a lot more alcohol and a lot less breastfeeding and breast pumps! Ha ha!
Of course, I missed my boys like crazy, and I was super happy to see their smiling faces when I arrived home.
On actual Mother's Day, we had a pretty typical day. Fed babies, changed bums, wiped noses and got lots of cute baby/kid smiles, giggles, hugs and kisses. Mark was tired from his experience of being Super Dad, but he let me sleep in late anyways! I'm so lucky to have such an awesome husband. Rylen gave me a card he made.
Then we drove back to Brandon. We stopped in Portage, as all three kids were needing various things and the van was becoming chaotic. Mark thought we should eat supper while we were there and he picked Aaltos for their dinner buffet.
We've done this before with the kids and it worked out pretty good. Last time, it was dead in there, so we could pretty much take over the place with all of our car seats and bags etc...
This time, I expressed my disagreement with the whole idea. Being Mother's Day, I figured the place would be super busy. Mark ran in to check it out and the ran back out to assure me that the place was dead and we would be fine to bring our cranky kids in there.
Ha! Well, shortly after we arrived, so did the entire city of Portage! The place filled up super fast and next thing you know we are crammed in a booth with two crying hungry babies and a three year old who was needing to burn off energy after being in the van for awhile. Given that we had to feed both babies, it took awhile before we were actually able to eat. We definitely exceeded the "Recommended Allowable Time That Young Children Should Be In a Restaurant". I think the highlight was when Rylen decided that he was not a little boy anymore, he was a cow and started mooooo-ing for all the world to hear. I tried and tried to convince him to be a quiet bird or a little kitten, but NO. He had it in his mind to be a cow. As if we weren't attracting enough attention, now we had a moo-ing kid at our table! I actually burst out laughing when Mark took Rylen/The Cow to the buffet to pick out his desert and all of a sudden I hear Mark say "No! You're a cow that walks upright on two feet!!!!" I guess he started crawling on the floor. I have to hand it to him: when he plays "Pretend" he goes all out.
My family is crazy. And oh yeah, we are working on appropriate restaurant behaviour.
In my head I am probably exaggerating. I don't think we actually were causing that much of a disturbance. I don't recall getting any dirty looks. And a couple of people stopped by to tell us our kids were cute (but maybe that was code for "please leave", hahaha)
Anyways, once we were home, I gave my boys extra kisses and cuddles. Throughout the day I was thinking alot of Ben and how I wished I could have shared Mother's Day with him too. I can't change that he isn't here, so all I could do was give his portion of the kisses and hugs to the kids that I have with me.
All in all, it was a great Mother's Day and I am so proud and happy to be a mama to three cute little men and one precious angel looking down on us.
Your husband is a saint! A night alone- amazing!! What a great gift!
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