As much as I love them, sometimes, I wish my kids would disappear for a while, a day, or even a few.

This afternoon, one of them is trying my patience in a battle of wills, and one is needing attention. We are attending to both, as we should. Playing our roles as good, attentive, caring parents. And I love it, we love it, wouldn't change it for the world and all. We know how lucky we are, believe me. Still it doesn't change the fact that I would just like them to disappear for a few days, so Tim and I could just be US. We have been WITH them, so intensely, for the last month. We took an epic family vacation. Encountered school stresses, for kids and parents alike, in the form of evaluations and testing. We faced a family funeral and had to take that time to adjust and to say goodbye. Now, I just want some time off, some time just for us.

Driving home from the store, with the clouds beginning to roll in, and with the 4 'o clock reality of Sunday evening looming, the song "Runaway" by Jefferson Airplane fed my angst even more.

"You don't know how much I miss you, I miss you like the sun. I want to put my arms around you, we could run, run, run, runaway."

Well, today saw the return of the summer sun. 78 degrees, I felt it through the roof of my car, as I zipped to the store, trying to make the most of the last thing I wanted to be doing. I was doing what had to be done. Tim was home, managing and mowing. Doing what had to be done. But the heat from the sun on my hair reminded me of how much I missed it. It reminded me of how our couple life feels right now. And I'm not talking about date night. We just had one on Friday. We have fun ones planned for the next two weekends, with other couples too. I mean us time, time alone, time to just BE. We get a lot more of it than some do, I know. But perhaps it is because of that that periodically we crave it more than most as well? It's not that anything is all that bad, or that anything is really wrong. We're just fried...tired. I know that a little time of JUST us will fix just about anything, and I know that a little time of JUST us would revive us both, allowing us to be, happily, the hands on parents that we both are. The parents that we both want to be. The people we both are.


Today, I just kinda miss us, and I wish we could just run, run, run.
Runaway.