baptismiversaday staycation 2k13: "gettin' DINKy wid it"

ohhhhhh mama, i am SO PUMPED for the next 5 days.

first, you'll be happy to hear that i heroically wrested control of this website back from the hostiles that overthrew it yesterday. jesse was punished brutally for fomenting rebellion--i normally love a good foment, but just not that kind. his punishment: me stepping on his bare foot and pivoting (thus twisting his surprisingly NOT gross, but still rather hobbit-like foot hairs). this is probably the only thing on planet earth that enrages my husband who has the temper of a filing cabinet (i dont know...? it's the end of the week and my metaphors are weak). 

seriously though, thanks to yall sweetums-poos who wrote mad-meaningful bday wishes. i dont like to advertise my bday too much. not because i am humble or dont want any attention, but because i dont want BS attention (like from 400 facebook friends who ignore me all year and then blow up my wall as if either of us really cares). i like to play hard to get and see who really loves me enough to know my birthday without a robotic reminder or to go beyond a 2 second wall blast. (yup, i sure do realize how psychotic and shallow this is of me. whatever. keepin' it real). anyway, the stuff i got from my bloggy internet family was my favorite gift! (huge props to jesse for knowing my secret, needy love language and setting things up for me to get some). 

ok so. 

my parents have a condo they own at the beach. ever since i was in 8th grade they have had one there, though they downsized when my brother and i graduated--to a one bedroom (we can take a hint!). well, they just sold the condo in hopes of retiring out west in a few years. so they are taking one last hurrah trip to the condo this week and offered to take judah with them. they said they could only take 2 kids at a time and  that Guinness, the ancient black dachshund, counts as one. sorry, layla.  so close!

luckily we have two sets of bananaramic grandparents, and the dukes offered to take layla during the same window.

so that means that on this, the biggest week of the year for me holiday-wise, i am kid-free for over 4 whole days!!!! 

hark those heralds, amiright?!?!

so when we got this childcare bounty all set up jesse and i took to the streets (of the internet) to find a sweet getaway. 

the last time we were kid free for this long, i annihilated jesse's brains (while pregnant) out with a MASSIVE surprise trip to mexico that he was utterly ignorant of until an hour before our flight. BLAM to the OH OH. 

so we looked. and looked and looked. but there was just nowhere calling to us louder than the sound of "YALL ARE POOR!" coming from our heartbrains. and rather than pulling a classic keight-move and forcing something just because (and paying the price next fiscal year), we decided to just be easy like sunday morning (which WILL be easy thanks to jesse also taking off a sunday at church: i havent seen jesse dukes before 9:30 am on a sunday in YEARS!!) and stay home kidless! .

we are staycationing. this is a term that is simultaneously so pleasing and yet obviously super lame, and i plan to use it wantonly over the next few days. yes. rather than packing up my suitcase, trying to remember all the small bottles of potion i need to hold my 31 year old acne at bay while not in my home territory and basically paying money to feel such stress, we are instead just taking a getaway to a simpler time: a time of D.I.N.K. (double income no kids) and newlywedship. 

the best part is, even though we arent as firm or svelte as we were back then, we are SMARTER. hardened  (in our souls if not our glutes) by battle (if not by squats), and ready to ACCEPT THE BLESSING of childless living. now, when we get a single child-free day due to amazing grandparents we will look at each other and go "WHAT IN THE EFF HELL DID WE USED TO FIGHT ABOUT!?!?! THIS IS THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD!!!!" so this special time is going to feel DINK+ since we know how precious that time is/was/should be.

because as actual DINKs, oh, we fought. we fought and fought and fought despite the fact that we only had one rectum's worth of wipe-responsibilities each. despite the fact that no one was drawing on the walls or dumping out 5 lbs of dry quinoa on the pantry floor. despite the fact that we were hot and (relatively) rich and bored and oh we  just FOUGHTSOMUCH. 

the immature part of me wants to just declare: married couples without kids: you are forbidden from fighting or complaining ever. your lives are so easy. youre basically living at sex camp.  majoring in sleep and minoring in freetime. be in love. the end.

but my higher-mammal brain does acknowledge (after a mental getaway at sex camp!) that you can only be where you are. that you sweet DINKs arent trying to waste the precious resource of young married life, you are just adorably stupid and you cant see its full worth (and wont until you've looked into the eye of the meconium hurricaine).

i can only appreciate quiet times with jesse now because i've moved into a place where they are so rare (that place is called 1200 square feet and two toddlers...or sometimes just "purgatory"). and i know it works both ways. i bet i could real quick make my current "crazy" life feel super easy by having triplets, or introducing a colony of wild badgers into the kitchen (either/or). 

so, whatever, DINK couples, do your thing. fight for HOURS and then sleep it off the next day because YOU CAN!  no sassy 2 year old mermaid ninja is going to come in at 2 am demanding you put her in a vintage sailor dress that she dug up from god knows where in the dead of night.  fight it out, learn to love each other right so that the ninjette and her parkour-enthusiast brother, far from driving you apart, will have a solid family foundation and model for marriage when they come tromping into your lives and your hearts eventually.

meanwhile, jesse and i will be secretly coveting your toned triceps and carefree dinner plans, not getting riled up by things that would have made us [re: me] nuclear 5 years ago, and only smiling maliciously a little bit when we think about how awesomely your asses are going to be kicked by those kids you "cant wait to have." 

but here is one thing i REFUSE to give grace to (very chrsitlike): DINK couples who don't DIY! for the sweet sweet love of Bob Vila, improve your home NOW!!! i get rage-gassy just thinking of the 3 years we spent loafing around our mediocre-to-nauseating house without using our hands and brains and the internet to make it OURS (not to mention that we could have become a saltier "young house love" first!) . we turned on our productivity right when judah was born and, naturally, have been impeded by our little love nuggets and could have gotten so flipping much done if we had been motivated back in the days when "i'm bored" was a nonfiction thought.

so yeah, the next 5 days are going to be amazing. hotels are exotic and fun and new, and it's nice to not have to clean them and all. but, oh man, just getting to do whatever you want in your very own house without any babytoothed productivity leeches getting in the way!?!?! that's downright naughty, naughty good. 

bout to get our three-way on with this big girl. (that's not inappropriate...i thought about it).