Kidless weekend

This weekend my children are staying with friends. We dropped them off yesterday evening around 6 and don't have to pick them up until tomorrow morning. It has been, quite simply, divine! Now don't misunderstand me. I love my children; adore them. I cover them with kisses and hugs and tickles at every opportunity, just in case they don't pick up on how much love it takes to do all those loads of laundry and dishes and cook all those meals and wipe all those bottoms and noses. But let's be honest people: children are exhausting. I'm reasonably sure parenthood is the most exhausting occupation ever created. So rest from that work--true rest without interuption--is just heavenly. I slept in this morning, and took a shower, and went out to breakfast with my husband. We wandered around stores and dreamed of things we'd like to buy and how they would change our life and laughed and chatted and generally acted as though we hadn't a care in the world. And for today, we didn't. What a beautiful thing.