Life – Page 16 – K.Ridwyn

I’ve always been an early riser. In my pre-kid days, I was up and about at 6am. Since kids, it’s been an assortment of waking-or-being-woken, and at almost every variation of hour and minute possible. Now that Mr 2’s almost Mr 3 however, my night-time patterns are slowly returning to some semblance of pre-kid existence, in that the hours in between 10pm and 5am are generally kid-free. And I’m okay with that. Really. Those night-time feeds were a killer – but nothing compared to the 3am vomit cleanups. (Sorry if you’re reading this while eating or with a queasy stomach!)

But my kids are getting older – it was inevitable – and that’s good. It’s also sad. No longer does Miss 7 want to come and see me as soon as she wakes up – she hasn’t done this for years now. Miss 4 also seems to prefer talking to her sister, and playing in their room. Now it’s just Mr 2 who comes to visit Hubby and me upon waking. It’s probably the only thing that he does voluntarily to show love / affection / a desire to be close to me. So I’ll be sad to see him grow out of that.

But this morning was precious. Mr 2 didn’t just visit, he climbed into our bad at 5.32am, and then Miss 4 also decided to join us at 5.45. Miss 7 even paid us a brief visit, to ask if she could now go on the playstation, seeing as she was completely dressed in her correct school uniform (part of a deal we’d made last night) so Mr 2 accompanied her to the lounge room, and Miss 4 snuggled, giggled, and played with her Daddy and Mummy until we all got up at 6.

Precious. Oh so precious.

I love my kids. To bits. Deeply. And forever. But man! It’s good to get a night out occasionally!

Last night was such a night. I left the “Mummy!”; “Mummy!”, and the “Mummy!” to Daddy for a bit, and escaped with a great friend to the movies.

It was raining. I didn’t care. I got wet. I didn’t care. It was dark, and cold. Again, I didn’t care. I was out, and I was in excellent company, and I had no kids.

The movie was hilarious. “This Means War“, the latest Reese Witherspoon rom com, a little like the ‘Spy vs Spy’ of my older brother’s Mad magazines, back when I was a teenager. But funnier.

I think my taste in movies has changed over time. Although I have NEVER been able to handle horror movies – they don’t do anything for me at all – I used to quite like thrillers. Romantic comedies were alright, and I cold happily pay the money to see a kid’s movie, but my favourite were action flicks. Anything with Bruce Willis; later on Vin Diesel, or Jason Stratham. Now, not so much. Yes, action flicks are still great, but I can’t do too many thrillers any more. Maybe it’s that I see enough tension in my day-to-day life that I don’t relish it in what little time I give myself for leisure time? I’m not sure. But now, it’s more the superficial light-hearted “escape” that I seem to prefer, as evidenced by last night’s choice. And the time before that it was “What’s Your Number” – another click flick, escapist, triviality.

Still an’ all – last night was great. I got home and the kitchen was a mess, toys covered the floor, and life returned to normal, but I knew that for a couple of hours I had escaped. And been rejuvenated. Which was wonderful!