>Alone Time

>”I wish you wouldn’t go out so much, Mommy,” Bear said to me today. I was getting ready to go to a Christmas party social for the wives in Tony’s Battalion this evening. Tonight marks the first time I’ve gone anywhere by myself – including the bathroom – since the middle of October. Nearly two months ago.

No wait, I take that back. I did make a twenty-minute round-trip to the grocery store last month. It was bliss.

I’m beginning to think that I don’t leave my children often enough. I love staying at home with them; I love being the one who’s there when they wake me up in the mornings, the one who drops Bear off and picks her up after her two-and-a-half hours at preschool three days a week, and being there to help Tony in getting them to bed. I like spending time with them. It’s why I’ve chosen not to return to the workforce for the past five years.

But every once in awhile, it’s nice to get away, just for a few hours. To be able to talk with other adults and know that I don’t have to spell anything out to prevent Bear from understanding what I’m saying, or being able to sit down and not have to jump up every two minutes to stop Bug from getting into everything he sees. It’s nice to be able to relax, sans children. Just once in awhile.

Tony and I don’t even go out without them. We haven’t had a night off since our anniversary back in August, right before we flew here, when Tony’s parents babysat for us so we could have a few hours to ourselves. The point I’m trying to make is, I’m always with these children. So Brenna’s comment made me want to both laugh and cry.

But I did get out tonight. For three and a half hours. And it was so nice. I socialized, met some new women, and got to know some others better. I was one of the last ones to leave the party with a friend of mine who was our sponsor when we arrived. Her husband had dropped her off at the party and then headed to my house with his kids, to keep Tony and the critters company.

(Because, you know, Tony can’t be alone with our children by himself. He’s never been alone with both of them for more than three hours. And he’s never managed to have both of them in bed by the time I came home. But I digress.)

When I walked in the door at 9:30, I fully expected Bug to be in bed, if not Bear as well. But there he was, sitting in the middle of the living room floor. Looking a little confused. And next to him was our friend, Manny, who was mopping the floor. In the air was a mixture of my apple spice candle, lemon, and burnt popcorn. And then Tony walked out of the kitchen, and said, “Oh, thank goodness you’re home!” If I hadn’t been so curious as to what had gone on in my absence, I might have seriously contemplated walking right back out the door.

So the story goes like this: Tony successfully cooked the lasagna I’d made for him, but later, after he’d put Bug to bed, the kids wanted a snack. He thought about giving them a scoop of the vanilla ice cream we’d bought and forgotten to serve with our pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, but decided instead to make the bag of popcorn they’d brought over. Forgetting that 1 – our microwave burns popcorn, no matter what the power setting and how long you put it in for, and 2 – that you can’t just set the timer and leave the kitchen when popcorn’s in the microwave, Tony set the timer for five minutes and left to flip channels on the TV.

A few minutes later, Manny said, “Hey look. Smoke.” Tony jumped up and ran into the kitchen, but the smoke was so thick he couldn’t find the microwave. He opened the kitchen window, grabbed the bag of popcorn and tossed it outside. Then proceeded to open as many doors and windows as he could around the house. Bear, being Bear, kept asking, “Why is there so much smoke?” and “Can we still eat the popcorn?” and “But I wanted popcorn! Why did you burn my popcorn?”

Tony lit as many scented candles as he could find, and then heard Bug crying in his bedroom. So Bug was let out of his room, and promptly walked over the the dining room table, climbed onto a chair, grabbed an open can of orange soda, and poured it all over himself and the floor.

Hence, the confused look on his face at 9:30 at night, combined with Manny mopping my dining room floor, and the smells of apple cake, lemon, and burnt popcorn throughout the house.

I’m not sure which is worse: never leaving my children or leaving my children and returning to a family that seems to fall apart the moment I put on my pretty boots and head for the door. Maybe next time I’ll hire a babysitter to keep an eye on Tony.

And for my Friends friends: “All this time we were so worried about the babies, we forgot to watch Chandler!”

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