Reconnection

It’s so easy with two little ones in the house to become enveloped in nappies, food prep, bag packing, breastfeeds etc, etc, etc! D and I have made a concious effort this year to make sure we are doing things for ourselves. D tinkers at his pen turning hobby at a woodworkers club once a week and plays in-line hockey on the weekend. I train with a group of neighbours in the evening and attempt to run once a week and have just started a once a fortnight cake and coffee date night with my bestie so we can actually finish a conversation! This has been great for both of us!

With all Drew’s family interstate and mine over an hour away, we parent solo (with the amazing support of each other of course!). We have no relatives on white horses sweeping in to save the day, no babysitters to call at a whim! As a result we spend no time on our own. I’m not suggesting we are any worse off than others – hair appointments, docotors appointments, parties,dinner’s out in this house are either a family affair or we fly solo!

Since L came along, we have been swept into the busy-ness that was/is two-under-two!! We managed a 2-hour escape to our friend’s 40th back in March and it was rather amazing!! D works Tuesday-Saturday each week and has his weekend on a Sunday and Monday. When a public holiday falls on a Monday, he gets the Tuesday off, the girl’s creche day. Usually we keep the girls home to benefit from the extra-dad day which is particularly important to my daddy-idolising 2 1/2 year old. This week however we decided to send the girls off and have the day to ourselves…….alone!!!!

We woke like two kids at Christmas time! D got the girls breakfast’ed and dressed in record speed!!! Due to money woes we decided to have a date day at home – besides, every outing we came up with one of would say how nice it would be to go as a family (mmm…maybe we missed the point a bit!!). Our grand idea was to re-do one of our first dates and take our skates to the esplanande in St Kilda, have a skate and then have fish and chips for lunch but sadly Melbourne turned off it’s long weekend sunshine yesterday!! We darted all over town in the morning getting some much-overdue chores done. To a child-less couple this probably sounds like the worse way possible to spend a date but those with little people will appreciate that we got in and out of the car at 5 different locations in 3 hours! Skipping along, silently feeling like something was missing!

Once chores were done we took advantage of the drizzly weather and bunkered down on the couch under the doona and watched 2 movies (2!!!!) complete with movie snacks! It was absolute bliss. By 4:30 I was getting twitchy and we picked up our beautiful girls who had also had a great day – C with hands stained blue from playdough play and L, apparently rather taken with standing in a block box!

It was nice! We needed it! A day to reconnect and remember that underneath all the chaos “we” still exist