<< Back 11/20/02 Mama gets her due – respite from the boys By Jay Hardwig We gave Nita a holiday last weekend. A kiss on the cheek, a ticket to New York, and permission to go. Three days in the Big Apple. Three days with old friends. Three days off, for the first time since Eli was born. Nita is my wife — Eli’s mom — and we love her dearly. Still, we kept a brave face as she left — smiling and laughing and waving goodbye — before heading out of the airport and home to the cold comforts of a juicebox and a German pilsner. Then it was over to a friend’s house for dinner. Boys’ Night Out, I called it, even if one of the boys was only 2 and another was a dog. We had a good time, and still got to bed at a reasonable hour. Very respectable. A year ago, the prospect of Three Nights Without Mama would have scared both of us silly, but Eli and I had come far enough in our respective roles of father and son that I knew we could handle a long-weekend with both our good cheer and all of our body parts intact. Nita must have agreed or she never would have gone. As it was, Three Nights Without Mama came on the heels of the wildly successful Three Nights Without Dada. In September, I had gone to the wedding of a college friend. For reasons tied to both labor and finance, Nita and Eli could not attend. I was left to make the trip utterly alone. I spent Labor Day weekend far far away, stranded on the Maine coast, surrounded by friends but without family for the first time in years. It was wonderful. No bones about it. Wonderful. Make no mistake: I love Nita and Eli with all of my heart. They are the two best things that have ever happened to me — coming in well above such would-be contenders as my first BB King concert, my first intramural softball championship, and my 1997 acquisition of a nonstick waffle iron. I missed them terribly at times — particularly during slow songs on the dance floor — and I would not want to be away from them for much longer than three days. But it was wonderful. I felt it the moment I arrived at the wedding estate on the coast of Orr’s Island. I changed into my swim trunks, jumped into the bay, and swam out to a small island that jutted up from a finger of the sea. I climbed upon a broad smooth rock, laid down, and let the sun shine on my face. I was doing my best bit of vacant basking when it occurred to me that I was free to stay there as long as I wanted (or at least until Monday). Sure, the groom would have been miffed if I had missed out on his wedding to take a 3-day nap on a rock. Still I was tempted. For the first time in years I had no one to answer to except myself. The whole weekend proceeded accordingly. New parents, I ask you to imagine the scene: I slept in Saturday morning, got up slowly, had a few pancakes, then read a bit of the paper as the sun warmed up the seaside porch. With a stretch and a yawn, I decided it was time for a spot of tennis. I hit a few balls with a friend, and followed that with a bit of sea kayaking. Then it was back to the house for a bit more newspaper, a short jaunt up the coast for a lobster roll, and finally a well-deserved nap. At four o’clock, slowly, deliberately, I got ready for the rehearsal dinner. It went on like this all weekend. Never a cry in the night, a tug on the leg of my pants, a sullen demand for a Blue’s Clues video. Never did I ask, “Is there anything here Eli can eat?” “Whose turn is it to change the diaper?” “Is that a choking hazard?” When I got tired at night, I did not ask, “Are you ready to go?” I just went. It was wonderful. Don’t get me wrong: I love being a dad. I would not trade the tugs on the legs of my pants for anything, and the cries in the night have a place in my heart as well. Freedom is exhilarating, but I have no wish to do it full time. Being alone, my aunt Janice says, is fun up until the moment you realize that no one misses you. Someone did miss me, and that made coming home the sweetest part of all. Once I got home, I immediately encouraged Nita to make a similar trip. Go see some old friends. Friends without kids. In New York City, if you’d like. Stay out late, sleep in, and do absolutely what you please, if only for a few days. We have a second child due in April, which is absolutely thrilling. Still, it’s going to get harder to pull off these kind of stunts. Go. It was important, I argued, for her to feel what I had felt. It was important for her to remember that she has an existence and an identity outside of mother, wife, and teacher, just as I have an identity outside of father, husband, and teacher. However much we cherish those roles, they are not the whole Nita, they are not the whole Jay. Sometimes we have to leave those roles to remember as much. It is important to do so; it is important to hold onto those other parts of the Self that can get lost in the mad glorious rush of the first years of a young family. I believe this now more than ever. Nita was reluctant at first. She was afraid she would miss us. She had second thoughts almost up until she boarded the plane, but she went. Eli and I had ourselves a grand weekend — let’s face it, the kid is as easy as a game of Uno — visiting my family in Knoxville. We came home Sunday to a warm reunion. As for Nita, she loved her holiday. She loved it for the same reasons I did. She went to an “opera restaurant” in Manhattan Friday night, and to a Broadway show on Saturday. She slept until 11 in the morning — remember what that was like? — and stayed up until 2 at night. She talked at length with friends, without interruption, and when she got tired, she just went. It was wonderful. No bones about it. We’ll do it again sometime. (Jay Hardwig is a writer and teacher. He can be reached at smardwig@charter.net)