Empty Nesting, a Practice Run

Yesterday our kids were gone. One left at 6 a.m. for an amusement park field trip, and the other at 6:30 for a Scout campout. So there we were, Robert and I, alone for the next 15+ hours.

Weird.

I lay around in bed reading, then sat on the sofa reading. I'm versatile like that.

Robert got coffee after dropping off the boys, and did some writing. Once he got home, I realized I, too, should do some writing, so off I went to my study while he took a nap. Before that, though, we made a Grand Plan.

Robert's glasses,
 Melanie's glasses,
awaiting our showtime.

We had the whole city at our disposal, and a considerable amount of the countryside as well. Museums, parks, shopping, theatre, dining. Roller skating. The sky was the limit. The house was clean, the grocery shopping could wait, and the kid-free world beckoned. After some debate, here's what we came up with: we walked (walked! In May! In this afternoon heat!) to the second-closest shopping center (more than a mile! Each way!) and got smoothies. Mind you, we could have just gone to the nearly-identical fro yo place two blocks from our house for smoothies, but they wouldn't have been so well-earned. Then we went to the theatre where they serve food while you watch movies, and had an early dinner as we watched The Five Year Engagement. Afterwards we browsed at the bookstore, and by the time we walked home the temps were far more bearable.

The High Life, I believe it's called.

But you know what? Coming up on 19 years of marriage, and 6 years before our youngest (theoretically) leaves for college, and I still really like talking to the guy I married. Not just about the kids, either. Our jobs, our families, our writing, our inability to walk a mile without becoming completely dehydrated and pathetically unable to continue without an infusion of blended pineapple and yogurt - it was all on the table.

So never mind that I stopped in the middle of writing this blog to enjoy the musical stylings of D on violin and K on piano as they played what I can only loosely call "Variations on Chop Sticks and Heart and Soul." Yes, the boys are amazing and perfect and the source of endless amusement to their parents, but Robert and I? When they desert us for the "lives of their own" they seem to think are so much more important than staying here to make us laugh, I think we'll be okay.

We might have to start going to the closer mall, though. My feet hurt.