The Road of Guilt Leads to Ohio

We got home from vacation on Saturday. It was nice to be home, even if it was short lived. I was home for 2 hours, which seemed like 5 minutes. Seriously, where does time go? I greeted the dogs, unloaded the van, and sorted mail. That's pretty much it. Then we headed out to re-stock the dog food and take the teens on a scavenger hunt expedition sponsored by the youth group at church.

People, I'm shocked and slightly amazed at how much Jack grew in the 9 days that I've been gone. I've been taking weekly photos of the wee pup so that we can watch him grow. The weekly photos have been rather boring. The only differences I've seen in them have been the position of Jack. He's facing right, he's facing left, he's licking Luke's face... And I go away for 9 days and he grew taller and broader. His head even grew. He's huge. Just huge. I feel like I missed his puppyhood or something. But he's still a dear little thing that loves to be petted, so we're good.

And then I was up until midnight repacking.

We left bright and early Sunday morning to take the kids to Kalahari Water Park in Ohio. It's a good time with the family, especially after being away from the kids for a week. It's definitely worth having them miss a day of school. We kind of figured we'd roll into town, scoop the little boys up from Grandma's, whisk them off to a water park, and be hailed the Best Parents Ever.

Turns out, the kids didn't miss us quite as much as we missed them. Go figure. It's kind of reassuring to know that we can leave for a while and the kids will carry on without us, but it's kind of a blow to the ego, you know? So I guess this means we're entering the next phase of our lives, right? The phase where we can be free of responsibility 24/7/365 and go enjoy ourselves on occasion without guilt.

So why, then, do we still have guilt that we left the kids, and feel the need to spend two days at a water park with them? Nobody told us that there would be a day that we would be parenting for our sake and not the sake of the kids.


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