My Kid-Free Mother's Day

I went away for Mother's Day.  My Baba made me feel guilty about it for, oh, about 10 seconds when she told me that I should be spending Mother's Day with MY mother (who lives about 5 blocks away).

HA!  Not only have I never had any sort of Mother's Day pampering, I have never had any time away from being a mother since I had Sacha.  Never have I had more than 4 hours away from my kids since August 25, 2006.  And that 4 hour stint was only once, when Tony bought me a "Get Stoned" spa package when Sacha was 3 months old.  Other than that, never more than 2 hours.

This weekend, I had 56 whole hours of relaxation and bliss.  Tony had bought me tickets to Stars on Ice for my birthday, to go with whomever I chose.  I decided to go with Talia, my sister, since she is as equally dorky about figure skating as I am.  I got to drive to Edmonton, which is 500 km from home, spend the weekend shopping, eating out, drinking Starbucks, indulging in a pedicure, singing karaoke at a pub, staying out past 10 pm and drooling over Scott Moyer.  And Kurt Browning, who did an entire routine to Luck be a Lady on hockey skates.  Them's are some skillz!

By Sunday, I was ready to come home.  I missed my kids, and I missed being a mommy.  Most days, I am trying to find some way to escape, and it feels awful.  I don't like being a SAHM who wishes she was working, or drinking, or doing ANYTHING else, frankly, other than being a mommy, raising kids day in and day out.

56 hours away was all I needed to want to go back to mommyhood.  I felt good about seeing my kids, about waking up at 6 am the next day, about why I chose to be a SAHM.

Moms who work at least have those 8 hours a day when they get to be someone else, a professional, a contributing member or society. A stay-at-home mother does not have an alter-ego.  There is only one self, and that is MOMMY.  This weekend helped me remember that deep down, Sarah still exists, a Sarah who can sing, who likes to spend hours at Chapters with a coffee in hand, a Sarah who likes to eat out at places without colouring pages for menus.

I need to learn to get away more often.  To learn to let go and let someone else take care of the kids for a day.  To reacquaint myself with Sarah and live her sans-kid life once in a while so that she can enjoy coming home to mommyhood.