The reason I’m able to be a stay-at-home-mom is a double-edged sword. My husband, Mike, has a great job, but it’s pretty demanding. Twice a year I basically become a single parent for about 4-6 weeks, while he works 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week. About five weeks into this past season of single parenting, my husband surprised us by coming home early on a random Friday. At 11 a.m. he texted me and asked if I wanted to go out for lunch – of course the answer was, “YES.” Followed quickly with a “HOW?”
Next thing I knew, he was walking in the back door with a fistful of flowers and I nearly passed out on the couch from an overload of shock and happiness. He announced he was taking me and our son Eli to Sea Salt, an outdoor restaurant right in the middle of a park, and going on a walk around the nearby waterfalls as soon as Eli woke up from his morning nap.
I was so excited I immediately started packing up our baby gear and as soon as Eli was awake, we were out the door.
On such a beautiful day, we were not the only ones with this idea so the lines were long and service was slow at the restaurant. To keep Eli at bay we fed him about half his weight in Cheerios and water. I had only wished I had brought enough Cheerios for me to do the same. But as the adult, you have to be the patient one, right? Sometimes being an adult is super annoying.
After lunch, we walked through the park to see the waterfalls and chase our own shadows.
One of Eli’s favorite things to do while exploring our backyard is pick the yellow dandelions and 1) Eat them or 2) Hand them to me. (Which makes me feel pretty good that I never even had to teach my son that giving flowers to Mom is a nice thing to do!)
Before we knew it the perfect afternoon was over and Eli was cashed out in his crib in the nursery while Mike cashed out on the couch before he needed to go back into work for another shift. I went outside so I wouldn’t disturb my boys, making a mental note to pack more Cheerios in the diaper bag for wonderful surprise lunch outings like today.
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