A mini vacation

Last week, Aaron worked nights all week.  It's kind of a rough schedule for him, especially when we are home and doing our best not to bug him (Haven does surprisingly well at leaving him alone...I do more interrupting, usually when my day as a parent is falling apart).  Anyway, by the time I get to Saturday morning, I'm a wreck - just kind of done with the week and really needing a partner, but after a week of working the night shift, Aaron is busy trying to sleep.

So towards the end of last week, in an attempt to avoid a Saturday Meltdown, I was trying to come up with a plan that would take Haven off my hands for a little while.  And in the midst of my planning, my mother-in-law called and offered, out of the blue, to take Haven for the night on Friday!  Well, hallelujah! Perfect timing, perfect break, perfect perfect.

This still meant I had Sebastian on my hands, but let me tell you - going from two to one is a piece of cake.  Even luckier for me, Sebastian took some really great naps on Saturday (I have a suspicion this may have had something to do with the absence of his big sister).  So while I couldn't necessarily sleep in, I could relax and take a pretty easy pace.  It turned out to be a really great and productive day - here are some of the highlights:

• I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.  This may sound like an odd thing, but when Haven is around, Haven wants to eat whatever you are eating whenever you happen to be eating.  This is generally okay, but sometimes I just don't want to share!
• I could leave whatever laying about the house.  Again, this may sound odd, but each night we pick up the house because when our day starts in the morning, it's off to a running start and if you leave anything out, anything, Haven will find it and play with it.  Magazines, mugs, cup of water, the remote, your purse, whatever.  She will get into it.  So to reduce the number of messes we clean up during the day, we try to pick up at night and put quite a bit of stuff out of reach.  So I was thrilled to go to bed on Friday and not worry about the house and to spend my Saturday morning leaving whatever wherever.
• I spent a lot of time reading, mostly during Sebastian's naps.  But even when he was awake, he requires a much simpler form of entertainment than his sister (for now).  And Aaron helped me out a lot by watching Sebastian (once he was done sleeping) so that I could read.  And I finished my book - and it was so good.  So good.  Aaron was also able to sit and read and drink his coffee - I'm pretty sure that was a highlight for him.
• We got all of the laundry done! Yes!
• We cleaned the entire house - it felt so good to get everything cleaned up and in order and vacuumed and dusted.  Dusted!  I never dust!  And it was so much easier to do without The Great Un-doer following right behind us!

Anyway, it was a nice little break from toddlerdom.  Haven had a great time with her grandparents and we are happy to have her back home.  Although, I think I could have used just one more day...