On a mundane Monday morning after a week of the hubby being with family 24/7 for his vacation, ponder how you can get some more time with him because, well, you miss him already.

Text beloved babysitter to see if she can babysit Friday night for a date night.  Grin when she says yes.  Vow to not tell hubby and surprise him.

Promptly erase calendar and start with next weeks date just to be efficient.

Brim thankfulness for a mother who offers out of the blue to watch all kids but the baby for a half a day so the mama can get life/home/self ready for the new homeschool year.

Spend nap times and night times organizing, planning, mapping out how to make one favorite quote from Charlotte Mason about education become reality:

Education is atmosphere.

Shop and think and rearrange and prepare.  Rearrange again.

Get lost in the details of everyday life.  Clean up spit up 8 times every day.  Feed small, hungry army.  Ponder why one child is not coping with life well this week.

Wake early on aforementioned Friday after broken and little sleep.

Wish I drank full caffeinated coffee.  Or Red Bull.  Or something.  Settle for home brewed Kombucha instead.

Ready kids to go with Nana.  Slightly embarrassed at the state the minivan, apologize for the mess.

Ready self to paint a large family/school room in 4 hours with a baby to tend to and a 7 year old enlisted at the last minute to help.

Work crazy hard and come close to finishing when kids rush back in the front door.

Chat with hubby throughout the work day.  Plan on taco tostadas for dinner.  Start cooking.

Still wearing jammies (now deemed ‘painting jammies’) from last night and smelling a lot less than fresh after the days labors, cook dinner, hold baby and supervise crew as husband rolls in.

Quietly think about how to get the paint dog paw prints off the carpet.  Wonder why she had to walk through the paint tray instead of around it.

Smile proud when he sees the paint job (anything was better than the key lime green he’s pleasantly put up with for two years now).

He dons pj pants and grabs a paint brush to pick up the rest of the job.

Puzzled at a dinner time door knock, figure its a neighbor and head to door in jammies with babe in arms.

A babysitter.  OUR babysitter.  But why I ask myself?  I look inquisitive and wonder.

She sees my confusion and asks, “Did you forget?”

Yes.  I completely, totally forgot my ‘surprise’.  And in the most delightful way, managed to plan my very own surprise date night, for myself.  Truly, I could not have pulled it off if I’d tried.

I holler that she’s here and say “Throw some clothes on, let’s go!”.  We all laugh, a lot.

“Hope you like tacos!” I quip to our sweet sitter.  I ask how she is and eyes well instantly, “Not so great…”.  All the kids hover in the kitchen and though my better judgement says don’t subject her to a hug give my jammie-clad-smelly state, I can’t do anything but.  Baby Finn gets squished pleasantly and I apologize for being sweaty.  Plain old, pure love may not always smell good, but it always feels good.

We clean up quick, the four-days-since-getting-washed hair stays in a pony tail.  The green paint stain I can’t get off my arm remains. No time for makeup or anything really, we hightail it to the restaurant where we have a great coupon I’ve been saving, you know, for this well-planned date night.

I giggle.  And we relish the time.  We talk goals and ideas for the new year at hand.  He makes sense of what I can’t figure out.  Love how he can do that when I just let him.