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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Perks Of An Empty Nest


I have a lot of Blog friends who are mommies to young kids. You guys are fun to read and as I have said before, I am pretty jealous of you for being a young mom in the age of the Internet. There are so many perks you enjoy and it is very possible that you may not even realize how lucky you are!

  • You don't suffer from the feeling of isolation that the moms of the earlier decades endured. Baby talk for 8 hours a day, most days of the week led us to the sensation of being dumber than a stick when we actually got around other grown-ups for any conversation longer than, "Did you get the diaper bag by the door?" "No, thought you did!".
  • Our only advice source was our own Mom or the Doctor's Office. Both of those can be entirely not-helpful at times.
  • You can display hundreds of adorable photos of your kids without seeing the dreaded look of boredom that can appear on your co-workers face or the other moms in the Doctors Office, since that is the only social outing for the month!
  • Having hundreds of Blog friends to inspire you and help you know you are not going crazy is a huge and gigantic perk to being a young mom today! I am jealous.....but I do not want to go back and do it again.

I am a happy EMPTY NESTER and here are some of the perks of having your kids grow up and move out of your house..........I know, I know, even speaking such words make you clutch your heart! But when the time comes, you will be ready.

  • Going Braless - I no longer have to wear a bra at home because my sons are gone. Now that is a PERK, in more ways than one!
  • Candy - I do not need to hide my candy stash in the back of my underwear drawer or the vegetable bin.
  • Fewer Dirty dishes - We run the dishwasher once a week instead of every night!!
  • Less Cooking - Related to the previous perk. I don't do big meals any more, other than holidays when they come home.
  • Less Milk - When my boys were here I could not keep enough milk in the fridge. Now we buy the smallest carton and even that gets old before we use it up!
  • Eating Out - Since it is just the two of us we eat out all the time! Love it!
  • Ears Are Safe- Turning on the CD player or the TV no longer breaks my eardrums, and scares me to death!
  • Noise - I no longer hear strange cooking noises in my kitchen in the middle of the night.
  • Smells - Also no more weird aromas from Rocker Son's midnight cooking experiments and the extra bathroom always smells wonderful!
  • Laundry - No more small loads of laundry being done for two shirts by sons late at night.
  • House Clean - When I get home the house looks exactly like I left it in the morning.
  • When they do come to visit, we actually sit and look each other in the eye while we talk! Love it!
I will admit that the first few times we came home from work to an empty and quiet house it made me sad. I remember standing in the living room looking at the couch cushions that were in the same spot I had left them and thinking that it was too quiet and empty feeling. Hubs came up behind me and said something about how great it was to come home to a clean house. I just nodded yes.

And I do have a silly habit of making sure the front door is unlocked when we are home even though we always come in through the garage door. Hubs asked why I do that and I told him that I hated the idea of either Writer Son or Rocker Son coming by and needing to knock or use their key.

Guess I ought to leave it locked so I have more time to run back and put some more clothes on and hide my candy!

6 comments:

  1. I do love this post, very helpful for me, since I almost have an empty nest. Was grieving over it, then son moved back in. Now look forward to empty nest again. lol
    kim

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  2. Yep, the move back in will do it for you! We experienced that also. My totally remodeled room went back to strange decorations like a 3 foot tall batman!

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  3. Although I am not an empty nester, I have an adult child, a teen, and two 10 and younger. Your comment about the bra totally made me laugh and I sneak that one in now when my son isn't home. It makes me feel so free! And why can't my children wash dishes so we don't have to run the dishwasher nightly? Oh and I am already dreaming about the size of my grocery bill when they all move out!

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  4. This is so cute. I wish my mom could be an empty nester, my married bro lives with her and his wife and child. She has to hide toilet paper and garbage bags, they take everything :(

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  5. O Ally, that's too bad! It is hard to share a home with another family. Amazing that it was very normal in previous generations and still is in other countries. We like our own space a lot nowadays!
    I know I do!

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Brenda