Since our son has been born, there has been very little opportunity to get time away. Its not that the will hasn't been there, or the desire to get away hasn't been there. Rather, its been more a matter of finding or making the time to get away. We have taken the occasional opportunity to get out for a night by ourselves, but that ends way to quickly and then its back to reality as soon as we left it. This past weekend, however, was our first time actually taking a whole weekend and getting away by ourselves; no child, no dogs, no cat. Nothing. We had planned this weekend away for some time and by the time it came around, we were more than ready to get away and do nothing. So Friday, which my wife and I took off from work, we spent the morning with our son and right around lunch time, headed down to my parents house to drop him off for the weekend. We had no clue how he would do over the course of the weekend without us as we had never left him for that long before. But, we didn't worry that much as he is a fairly easy going child, mostly flexible, and loves his grandparents. So we had lunch as a family at my parents house and after putting him down for a nap there, got in our car and headed out for our weekend. We got on the road before there was any rush our traffic headed straight for our destination, Narragansett, Rhode Island. We have what I'll call a family friend who owns a condo in that quaint sea-side town opposite the bay from Newport and who was willing to let us stay there for the weekend free of charge. It took us maybe an hour and a half to get out there and after making a quick stop at the grocery store to grab food for dinner and breakfasts, we were at our weekend retreat. We settled in quickly on Friday, relaxed, made our dinner, and before it was even 8 o'clock in the evening, were falling asleep in comfy rocking chairs in front of the TV. While our activities on Friday were par for the course of any Friday, we had no child to worry about getting down for bed, no dogs to feed and let outside to relieve themselves, and no cat pawing her way all over us looking for her most comfortable spot. It was just my wife and I, and quiet. It was a nice break from the normal routine. As much as we love our son and our animals, it was nice to take some time to ourselves and just focus on ourselves.
Saturday morning we slept in, not late like normal people, but until 7, which is late for us. On a normal Saturday, we would have been up the latest by 630 with our son, scrambling around the kitchen to make breakfast and trying to entertain our son while all of us got more and more hungry. This past Saturday, we leisurely made our way downstairs and with no hustle or bustle at all, made our breakfast and ate it in silence, except for the sound of our own voices talking. It was a slow breakfast, with a slow clean up, and a long discussion about what we actually wanted to do on Saturday. We ultimately decided to make our way to Newport for a few hours, visit one of the spectacular mansions that was built during the gilded age on the water, and then make our way back for lunch. My wife had never been to Newport and it had been over a decade since I had last been there. It's a beautiful town with beautiful houses and our few hours spent there was fun. Once we finished with our tour of the mansion, The Breakers, we had lunch with my brother and his girlfriend turned fiancee at perhaps the best little burger shack around, the Crazy Burger. It was good food, good times, and afterwards, they were off the casino, and we were off for a little drive around the area. We meandered our way down to the Point Judith light house and off a gravel road nearby, an old buried army bunker that 7 years ago I had snuck in with a friend. Its still there, albeit a little closer to the ocean now due to erosion, and I didn't sneak in this time as my pregnant wife was with me in the car. So after our little drive, we made our way back to the condo where I proceeded to take a nap for an hour and upon waking up, we had the incredibly hard decision to make about whether to order take out or actually make our way to a restaurant and have dinner out. Despite our incredible desire to just order take out, we freshened up (meaning put on our shoes) and made our way out to a small restaurant. It wasn't the best, but it was decent and the food was at least edible. The young waitress did forget our clam chowders, but since dinner came in its place, we didn't really care too much.
Saturday evening was spent much the same way Friday evening was, a few rounds of cards, and then relaxing in front of the TV till we fell asleep. Saturday came and went way to quickly, although we did get to relax a lot, and then came Sunday and preparations to go home and pick up our son from my parents house. We did miss our son, but were also a tad bit lazy about getting ourselves together to go home. We did make it back in time to pick up our son and ferry him home so he could take his afternoon nap at home. In the end, the time spent away flew by way too fast and after even just after two days without a child or pets, getting thrown back into the mix was a shock to our systems. I think it was more that after 2 days of completely quiet and no responsibility outside of feeding ourselves, having a child and pets craving attention pushed us a little overboard. But here we are, back to Monday morning, and life is returning to normal. It is almost time to get our son out of bed and get breakfast started before running out of the house. My wife and I are hoping to make this a yearly tradition for ourselves as this was a much needed break from everything. We shall see if it happens next year, but we will do our best to make it happen. The two things I came away with from this weekend are that I love my wife just as much as the day I married her and I definitely love my son, but my wife always comes first.
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