Matthew is giving the art of guilt-tripping his absolute all. 100% effort. No sign of weakness. It’s currently “Quiet Time” in the Martin household. Quiet Time ideally means that it’s quiet…time. Zach is napping and Matthew should be having some quality time with Green Bear in his room, playing with Legos, listening to an audio book or looking at books. But no. Instead, recently, Matthew has declared that he no longer wants to do Quiet Time in his room – he wants his Legos out in the living room. This isn’t – and shouldn’t be – a huge deal…but then Quiet Time turns into “Lay it on Thick” Time.

I was trying to work on my book a bit ago (since this is the only time during the day – unless I get up early) that I can do so. But I couldn’t really concentrate when all I could focus on was the steady stream of whining. It started like this: “Mommmmmmy. I NEEEEED you to come PLAAAAAYYYY with me…I get very tired when you don’t play with me.” Then it turned into this: “Mommy. I LOVE you. I need you to play with me because I love you SOOOOOOOOOOoooooo much…Don’t you want to play with me? Why don’t you want to play with me? You’re a fun Mommy and I want you to play with me.” See the change of tactic there? He figured his odds for my caving were much better should he go the guilt-trip, butter-me-up route. Hahaha! How he underestimates my will of steel – my complete and total dedication to MY Quiet Time. (He finally gave up and went to play Legos in his room).

Now, if that isn’t enough for you to judge me – (What kind of mother wouldn’t cave under those loving pleas?) – I will now provide with some more proof as to why Mike and I deserve the “Deliquent Parents of the Year” award. We abandoned the boys this past weekend – they were in good, loving and capable hands – but we totally ditched them. We went to Eastern Washington for an Engaged Encounter hootenanny. Well, technically it’s the Unit 3 Board Meeting but the board meetings are WAY too much fun to call them meetings.

We got put up in a house of another EE couple – pretty much a mansion where we had our own Master Suite (the house had two!) complete with ginormous bathroom with soaking tub. We spent Saturday evening doing a ‘blind’ wine tasting. (Everyone brought wine from their region – Washington, Idaho, Oregon, but it turns out Montana doesn’t have wine or there would’ve been some). All the bottles were placed in brown paper bags (classy, huh?) and numbered. So, we just drank away trying to pick our favorites and guess what they were. Then on Sunday before we came home, Mike and I stopped at a vineyard and did some more wine tasting. Mike drove. I drank. We left with two beautiful wine glasses and a few bottles – one for us, one for my parents and one for our friends who hosted Matthew for his first ever sleepover on Saturday night.

[Ahh, beautiful segue, which I still think should be spelled “segway”…] SO, Matthew went on his first ever sleepover! That’s right – four years old and the kid is doing slumber parties! Matthew (and Zach) spent Friday night at my parents’ house and then Saturday, Matthew got to go to his best pal, Jack’s birthday party and then spend the night. We met Jack’s parents, Megan and Kelly, in childbirth class, so the boys have literally known each other since before Day One. And Matthew LOVES Jack and anyone slightly related to him. Megan reported that Matthew is officially a Sleepover SuperStar. The best story of the night happened around bed time.

The boys were getting all tucked in and settled to sleep when Matthew said that he didn’t want to have bad dreams. Megan assured him that they chase all of the bad dreams out of their house, so there was no need to worry. Matthew thought about that and replied, “But my bad dreams are in my eyes, so when I close my eyes they’re there.” Without skipping a beat, Megan blew into Matthew’s eyes and said, “There! I just blew away all the bad dreams. You’re good to go.” Matthew thought that was hilarious! (When I heard that I thought that’s just another reason why I need to take parenting lessons from Megan). Then, Megan suggested that the boys – though they had to stay in their own beds – could talk a little bit about the good things that they wanted to dream about. With that, she left the room….only to return a few minutes later when she heard nothing but hysterical laughing coming from Jack’s bedroom.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

Matthew, who was busting a gut laughing, managed to squeak out, “We’re going to dream that Jack and I are at the beach….giggle giggle….and that we sit down in the sand….haha…and TOOT IN THE SAND!” And with that the boys both collapsed into gales of laughter again. Needless-to-say, they had a great time…and Matthew was in bed for a nap by noon.

So, the reason why you need to thoroughly judge us (because I do) is we’re leaving our children behind AGAIN THIS weekend. We fly out of SeaTac at the butt crack ‘o dawn on Friday morning for Dallas to go to Liane’s wedding. Liane is my best friend from college, Freshmen year roommate, one of my bridesmaids and fellow Marathoner…she’s gotta be a good friend to listen to me talk for five hours of running. I ADORE HER. And I ADORE her man – Jeff. As much as Mike and I are absolute opposites-attract-types she and Jeff are exact carbon-copy-types. Jeff is pretty much the boy version of Liane. They are so stinkin’ cute together and will go forth and make the most stinkin’ cute little Korean-American babies that you ever did see. And….drumroll please….they haven’t even kissed!!! They’re saving their first kiss for the altar. Now, that’s a lot of pressure. I mean, when they’ve waited that long to kiss, what’s the likelihood that they’ll actually pull apart and come up for air anytime soon? I’m thinking it’ll be a long wedding.

And since I’m the first to admit that I completely judge us and our parental dedication (or lack thereof) for ditching the boys two weekends in a row, I will also be the first to offer the following confession: I am SO excited to travel without children. I’m excited to sit on a plane for five hours with my book and my laptop. I’m excited should we get delayed at an airport! I’m excited to not have to travel with car seats and oodles of baby gear – heck! We aren’t even going to rent a car! And I’m super excited that it’s 90 degrees in Dallas right now! (It’s currently cold and windy and rainy in Seattle…welcome to October in the northwest)!

Alas, Quiet Time has come and gone. The boys are here eating Goldfish crackers and whining…and asking questions…and begging for more food…and dropping food on the floor. I AM going to miss them this weekend – maybe not the whining part – but I will miss them. I mean it.