Surviving Spontaneity

For the past couple of years, since Jeff and I became parents, our lives have been very structured. There hasn’t been much room (or energy) for spontaneity. If anything, we were more likely than not to cancel plans (sorry , we know we’ve bailed on all of you at some point) rather than make plans at the last minute. Structure has been the only way to keep everyone in our family happy, healthy, and sane.

So this weekend was a big shock to our systems. On Thursday night we found out that our friends Tom and Kursad, along with Tom’s girlfriend Monica (who is now our friend!), were coming for the weekend. This is when I realized that there are some advantages to being super pregnant with twins. In the past, I would’ve freaked out by this turn of events and would’ve spent hours on Thursday night grocery shopping and cleaning the house for the weekend. Instead, I did the very bare minimum. Thursday night R helped me sweep and clean the bathrooms to remove the biggest chunks of dog hair, and that was the full extent of our cleaning efforts. On Friday, she helped Jeff vacuum, take the recycling to the collection center (we don’t have curbside recycling here, so recyclables pile up all over the house) and they went to the grocery store for a few basic food items. And that was it.

Friday afternoon the guests arrived, and we had a wonderful time with them. We had a completely relaxing weekend of beach going, movie watching, and great conversation. There were a couple of times during which everyone else went out while R slept, and I read almost half a novel enjoying the quiet. It was great. Perhaps, even with kids, spontaneity can be a great thing.