Empty Arms

Tonight we had dinner with friends at their home.  Our daughters are very good friends and they have a four month old son.  Although I look forward to dinners like this I also dread holding Christian in my lap all night because he won’t sit by himself or let anyone else hold him.  Don’t get me wrong, or start quoting from my other posts, I love cuddling with and holding my son.  But I really do love the idea of grown-up time, and as all parents know, this usually happens while your kids are playing with your friends kids and you are having wine over the sounds of (hopefully) happy cries.  Christian doesn’t usually let me have these nights.

Tonight was different.  He sat in a chair in the bedroom with the girls and gleefully watched them play.  I stood in the kitchen with my girlfriend with a glass of wine and listened to him laughing while the girls danced in front of him.  During dinner he ate happily in a borrowed highchair and I ate my entire meal without him in my lap.

I do love to cuddle with my kids but there are times when you look forward to them playing without you.  Tonight Christian gave me a great gift in the form of Mommy free time, although technically I wasn’t free it’s about as close as I get.  And even though I snuck back to the bedroom to check on them maybe a million times, my night with empty arms was beautiful.

Spying on the kids playing