We dropped the kids off at Grandma’s house for a last-minute sleepover. Mommy and Daddy were going to get their staycation on! We drove home with the radio on full blast and no melody from a Music Together CD to bring us down. When we got home, we thought, the world would be our oyster. We would relax, kick back and do whatever we wanted! And then we would go out and party like we used to before the word “party” evolved into goody bags, ice cream cake, and small talk with all of our children’s classmate’s parents.

But things didn’t exactly go as planned. Here are 18 things we did during our weekend without the kids.

  1. Checked ALL THE FEEDS! When we got home, we checked all our social media feeds: Instagram. Facebook. Twitter. I even set up a Snapchat account. I had no idea how to snap, so I sent a selfie of my nostrils to my mom friend who moved to Australia.
  2. Vegged out. My neck hurt because my two year old climbed into our bed earlier in the morning and fell asleep on me in a position I couldn’t escape from without waking him. I broke out BOTH heating pads and watched an episode of Girls.
  3. Opened my Amazon boxes. With the kids gone, I realized no one would be crying that none of the Amazon packages contained any toys. Also, I wouldn’t have to X-ACTO knife a small village out of all the boxes for the boys to play in.
  4. Encouraged Husband to change the toilet seat in our bathroom. The new toilet seat for our bathroom arrived. I located Husband, who was quietly enjoying the newspaper, to remind him that he needed to accomplish this ONE TASK before the children returned home the next day. I highlighted the importance of this task since our old toilet seat kept shifting to the left whenever anyone sat on it.
  5. Recycled stuff. I neatly put away all my newly arrived cleaning supplies and deposited all the boxes in our building’s recycling room.
  6. Sweetly reminded Husband to change that toilet seat. I pointed out that we would have to start getting ready soon to meet our friends for dinner. If he didn’t get on that toilet seat changing thing, then it might never happen. I then proceeded to watching Girls.
  7. Took a nap. I woke up to the credits of Girls episode, with a heating pad burn on my back. Husband was in a similar state, with the newspaper across his face.
  8. Cleaned unnecessarily. Dog peed on the bath mat, so I broke out Clorox wipes and started a load of laundry. Husband took Dog out for a purely symbolic walk since he had already done his business.
  9. Checked on kids. I confirmed that the kids were having a blast: they ate pizza and ice cream and were currently blowing bubbles on the front porch. They were having more fun than we were.
  10. Gave dog a bath. Husband returned from his walk looking less than thrilled. The dog must have eaten the fur off of one of his stuffed animals because his poop was the kind that hung out of his butt by a string. He was now in dire need of a bath. Kill us now.
  11. Had second thoughts about this staycation thing. The day was pretty much over, and we basically had only done the “staying” and none of the “cationing.” And we still needed to install that fucking toilet seat.
  12. Tried a new face mask. Before replacing the toilet seat, I decided to put on a detoxifying face mask I’d been waiting to try for six months. It smelled like lavender. Serenity now.
  13. Fixed the fucking toilet seat. My face was freshly moisturized. So it was time to go back to doing things we couldn’t do when the kids were home. Husband was holding new toilet seat, and I was in charge of cleaning all the crevices on toilet bowl before he installed it.
  14. Got ready to hit the town. Thank God, there was still dinner and drinks ahead of us. We queued up the Drake playlist on Spotify and started getting ready for a BIG NIGHT OUT. We were ‘bout to get turnt!
  15. Hit the town, got home early. We had a feeling the kids were gonna Facetime us at 6:30 am and Grandma would want us to get them not long after that. So we decided to call it an early night just in case. We were home at 10 pm.
  16. Spent some QT with Hulu. All was not lost! It was still relatively early, which meant it was the perfect time to dim the lights, get super comfy, and snuggle up to my iPad mini and some Inside Amy Schumer action on Hulu.
  17. Suffered insomnia. At midnight, I still couldn’t sleep. The house felt weird without the children in it at night. Even the dog was pacing anxiously at the bottom of the bed. I got up to turn the light on in my son’s room so that things didn’t feel quite so strange.
  18. Tried really hard to look on the bright side…At the asscrack of dawn. Woke up at the usual ungodly hour of 5:30 am like clockwork, even without anyone screaming the word “Mommy” from across the apartment. Hey, at least the new toilet seat fit great and didn’t shift when sat upon. Miracles do happen.