We just got back from a week without our children in Mexico (… pause for jealous glares…)
Chad and I had a lot of time to talk during that week–obviously because there weren’t two screaming children requiring our constant attention. Of course we reminisced over the past 3 years and all of the wonderful, awful, hilarious, and beautiful things that have happened. One memory that stood out most to us was our last adult only trip we took when McKinley was 7 months old.
Chad made me a promise when we got married that he would take me on a vacation, just the two of us, after each baby to have an “us” reset. We didn’t make scheduling that very easy the first time since we got pregnant when McKinley was only 9 months old..
For that trip we went to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. It was tropical, beautiful and got us out of Iowa in January- what’s not to love? Here was the thing though- that Chad and Erin that left on that vacation were going through a lot. We were towards the end of a full remodel (to the studs with a huge addition doing a lot of the work ourselves.. ok mostly Chad) and had been living in my parents basement with our infant daughter and 2 dogs for almost 6 months. Those things do not exactly a perfect scenario make. We NEEDED this vacation- we had to get away and be “us”. There was just one problem….
The us we pictured was honeymoon us and we thought all it would take was a tropical getaway to get us back on track. Our once incredible sex life had fizzled and we were convinced it was 100% location. We snapped at each other a lot and were fighting way more than either of us wanted to admit. We thought stepping on that plane would leave that all behind– we quickly realized that the couple you are at home is the couple that goes on vacation. You get to leave the day to day responsibilities behind, but the real issues are still there and with 7 days of nothing but alone time- welcome to the pressure cooker.
I won’t go into all the details, but what I will say is we did enjoy that vacation. We had a good time, but there were some hiccups along the way. We only realized the depth of our issues recently as we have reached the happiest we’ve ever been. It was such a blessing to go on this trip to Mexico with my best friend and soak it up for exactly what it was: a week alone to actually have time to connect uninterrupted and SLEEP! We’re 30, people- with an 8 month old that wakes up at least 2 times a night.. our butts were in bed by 10 at the latest (and awake before 6am like clockwork unfortunately).
Time away together as husband and wife is essential! You have to keep that connection deeper than a few words over the yells and needs of your children, but when you plan that trip- my advice- work through your shit before because that is baggage you can’t check!
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