Hour of Power

Forgive the radio silence on my end this past month.  After our awesome trip to Ogunquit, our family suffered a few setbacks. Nothing too terrible thankfully, but just enough to keep life more interesting than you’d like it to be.  The night we returned from vacation, we were awoken at midnight after a large tree branch fell on my husband’s car and totaled the roof. The next week, I discovered an impressive leak in our basement ceiling: four hours, two plumbers, and a few holes cut in our ceiling later, we discovered it was coming from our condo mates’ refrigerator.  That weekend, little miss swallowed some beads in the morning, and if that weren't enough, in the afternoon walked into a glass door and fell dramatically backwards, hitting her little toddler head on a hard granite floor.  This past week we were informed that three children in the dude’s preschool have scabies, so he and all his classmates need to be treated prophylactically. Score.

All that, and I have been transitioning to working more in the office this past month. In the chaos of everything, I had also forgotten that my husband was also on call Columbus Day weekend.  So, it's been busy, to put it mildly.  After an action-packed weekend hanging with my home team, our nanny came in that Monday morning to give me a much-needed break.  While they were out enjoying breakfast, I relished in the quiet of our empty house, and used some of the time to catch up on work and home chores…but saved an hour to myself.

I took a leisurely walk to Harvard Square and sat down to a steaming, fragrant bowl of Pho. I savored every slurp of my noodle soup, musing about what a luxury this was to sit and eat, mindful of each delicious bite.  Pre-kids, of course, every day of my whole life was more like this.  Post-kids? Well, it can be a little more of a circus.  Hence the need for mama to unplug sometimes, even if just for an hour, lest she get a bit unhinged. Invigorated by the soup and the gorgeous fall colors around me, I walked briskly back home and was promptly welcomed by calls of “mama!” and hugs from my two most precious treasures.  What a wonderful end to my hour of power.