Gimme A Break

There are lots of benefits of being in real estate.  Being your own boss. Setting your own schedule. Coming home when your wife pukes. I only take advantage of my husband’s flexibility when absolutely necessary and recently it was absolutely necessary. Stomach bug hit and it hit hard. When your kids get it, it’s gross but manageable. When mommy gets it, the ship goes down. Fast. Sure, you may drop a couple lbs and get an uninterrupted napping sesh, but nothing is worth that purge. 

We’re not gonna spend a lot of time talking about stomach bug because that’s disgusting. But what we are going to talk about are appropriate reasons to call your husband home from work. It’s important to properly assess the situation because hubs can’t run the business if he’s running home to help you. The military uses the DEFCON warning system to evaluate threat levels and you can, too.

DEFCON 5 - things are loud and cray, you gotta get out of the house.

Solution: Drive thru Starbucks. Text hubby pic of you drinking latte.

DEFCON 4 - favorite stuffie is lost, birthday card almost got flushed down the toilet.  One or more tantrums. 

Solution: Locate corkscrew, pour glass of wine. Text hubby: How’s work??

DEFCON 3 - may involve a pooping episode, two or more tantrums, spilled dinner, spilled milk, spillover of toddler emotions.

Solution: Bypass corkscrew, grab screwtop bottle, pour quickly. Text hubby: When will you be home???

DEFCON 2 - someone is teething, someone is puking, toilet officially clogged, and your water is turned off. 

Solution: Forget glass, drink straight from bottle. Text hubby: Where ARE you????

DEFCON 1 - multiple nap boycotts, multiple tantrums, multiple bodily fluids on multiple surfaces, shit is literally hitting the fan and YOU ARE OUT OF ALCOHOL!!!  Also, stomach bug.

Solution: You don’t have one!! Text hubby: COME HOME NOW.

NOTE: I do not love sending this text. Hubs does not love receiving this text. Doesn’t matter where he is - office, gym, World Championship BBQ cookoff workday - you send that SOS and he comes home to an entirely different workday.

The good news is DEFCON 1 situations don’t happen too terribly often. However, when your DEFCON 5 situations have you feeling and reacting like they’re DEFCON 1 situations, this is a sign you may not be giving yourself enough timeouts. Sure, you gave your children plenty of those earlier today, but you need them, too. If not, you’ll end up in your OB’s office with two kids under two asking if you need to be medicated. Sometimes this is the answer, and sometimes, you just need a break.

So what do you do??

Go grocery shopping! “But Jessica, I just had my groceries delivered this morning.” Well, Kroger has an in-store bar now so maybe you forgot the milk? And I’m sure you need diapers. 

Go to Walgreens! “Uh, Jessica, I just got more diapers while I drank at Kroger, why do I need to go to Walgreens?” You don’t. Park your car and use that pack of diapers as a pillow. Take a nap.

Back in my brand name days.

**Speaking of alcohol & diapers, these purchases go hand in hand, and you usually get what you pay for. However, after exhaustive market research, I have found that all the discount diapers get the job done and are half the price of Pampers. Obvi, if your kid has the poop to end all poops, there’s no stopping it regardless of what you paid. Life is full of choices - do you buy discount diapers in order to buy better booze? If it’s your third child, then yes. Your 25 year old self might disagree, but you are now too old and parenting is too hard to drink bad wine. **

That life lesson aside, for some more substantial breaks from mothering, try one or all of the following:

Get a YMCA membership - Take kids to Childwatch. Workout or don’t.

Find a Mother’s Day Out program - Drop off children and rejoice all the way home.

Plan a Mother’s Night Out - These fill your cup. And your wine glass. Too many times.

Schedule a Date Night - You won’t have to chug your margs or ask for the check immediately after ordering your food.

Have a Mommy Staycation - Not to be confused with a Mommymoon, which I also highly recommend. A Mommymoon is complete abandonment of parental duties for at least a 24 hour period, whereas a Mommy Staycation pairs pivotal parenting times (like mealtimes, bath and bedtime) with plenty of peacing out over a 24 hour period. Activities may include solo errand running, quiet coffee drinking, impromptu gal pal dining, culminating with professional Trellis massaging. You know you have a gift card hidden somewhere from two Mother’s Days ago. Dig it out & book that spa treatment! It will feel like the fastest 50 minutes of your life but afterwards you can spend at least twice that amount of time in the Tranquility Room. The dim lights and gentle trickle of the water feature will lull you into a post massage sleep so deep the only thing that will wake you is a text from your hubs wondering if you’re ever coming back.

And lastly:

Go on RETREAT - If you get an opportunity to retreat, (literally) GOOOOO! Whether it’s a 4 day ACTS retreat (profound & transformative) or a one day Embrace Conference (amazing & restorative), do it! You will eat, you will pray, you will laugh, you will cry. Your husband will probably do all these things, too, especially if you’re gone for four days.

Remember, if you don’t have, you can’t give. And mothers are called to give all day, and sometimes all night, long. Give yourself the gift of time away! You’ll come home tender instead of tense, loving instead of livid. So whether it’s a weekend retreat or a nap in a Target parking lot, take that timeout. Just review the DEFCON warning system with your hubs before you go.