Away... and liking it

I slipped away into the KCI terminal, glancing back at my little lady in tears in the back seat of Grandma and Granddads car. And I left anyway.

As if that weren't bad enough, I enjoyed it. I had a great time in Vegas, spa-ing at the Bellagio (jealous much?), eating extremely tasty yet expensive food, sleeping in a big bed and controlling the shades by remote. Stuart left work on Thursday and we jetted away to scenic Reno (um, no) and enjoyed two days together at the Reno Air Races.

Do you know what kind of trouble exists in the great big kidless world? Well, more than I experienced, I'm sure, but I did indulge in some simple joys. Silence. Hand-holding (the grown-up type). Waking up to an alarm clock (okay, that's not too joyous). Shopping AND trying things on. Even if I didn't need them. Or think they would fit. Eating whenever we wanted.

Ah, but here comes the rub: I couldn't indulge without noticing all the little almost-two-year-old girls riding in strollers with their moms at the outlet mall. Or the boys checking out the airplanes and having shirts signed by the pilots.

The moral: You can leave town, but the ties remain.

I was totally floored by a story on Good Morning America (another of my childless pleasures) about a woman who left her family for a writing conference 7 years ago and never came back. Abandoned her husband and 6 children, leaving them penniless and the 14-year-old daughter to sacrifice her life for mommyhood. How does that happen? How can she walk away without seeing her kids faces in the streets of London, or checking out the kids clothing in a catalog? How do you take the savings, knowing your kids are left destitute?

No matter how independent I want to be, or how fun it is to be childless for a weekend, I can't imagine pushing away the shoestrings tying me to my two little bundles of fun.