The Sound of Silence

I never thought this moment would come. Actually, I knew it would come, I just really never anticipated having it yet.

My house is empty. Well, except for me. Lainey's at school and Brady is at a playdate. I can hear the clock ticking, literally.

I'm lost without them.

I've never been the kind of mom who seeks after alone time, never needed to hide in a closet. Oh, I've had my moments of frustration, for sure. And I've declared loudly that I needed girl time, but usually it was because I wanted to go have a little fun more than it was because I was sick to death of my children.

I decided to use my two free hours perusing Fred Meyer. It's the only place to 'shop' in town and Lainey needed some leggings. I've never really complained about taking my kids shopping with me. It's no sunny day beachside in the Bahamas, but it's also not being strapped to the dentist's chair while a drill hums expectantly in the background. While in Freddie's, I meandered. Yes, that is a complete sentence. And just ponder on that for a moment. I am a mother, I am busy taking care of my family, and today, I meandered. It was a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, there is only so much to peruse at Fred Meyer, so I came home to my empty house.

On my way home, I thought about these lonely hours I now need to fill. You wanna know why this seems so odd? Because it wasn't really my plan. When I had my first baby, I thought I would just keep on having babies until I was done. My house would just circle through all stages of babyhood and toddlerhood and youth until I was 'done'. But what we expect to happen isn't always what actually happens. And for some reason, that has been a hard truth for me to learn. Things always work out 'how they should' in the end, but having faith that 'how they should' is really how things should go when 'how they should' isn't what your 'how they should' was when you started this whole thing is hard to accept. At least for me. But maybe I'm the only one that struggles with that. And maybe I'm the only one that understood that particular sentence. Either way, it's cathartic to write it down.

I get to go pick up Brady now. Then we pick up Lainey. 2 hours really isn't that long, but I think I'm going to need some good ideas of things I can do to fill this time. I could read my current book (Catching Fire, second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Pretty darn good.) but I can do that later. Any ideas, ladies? I'd love to go to a movie by myself, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any showings at 9 a.m. What I really need is a Target to get lost in...