Once Upon a Time...

...there lived a mama who wanted to be alone.

Not all the time. Not even some of the time. Just for a couple of minutes one evening.

She finished feeding her family, then cleaned the kitchen with her husband while the children read books in the living room. She laid out ingredients to make cookies later, and prepared a snack of apples and peanut butter for the seven-year-old who is always hungry. A princess in a tutu begged Daddy for a dance, and when he dried off his hands, they began their waltz.

Mama looked around.

Little Man sleeping for a few more minutes. Children snacking, dancing and reading. Butter softening for cookies, can't make them now. Hmmmm...

And she slipped down the stairs for a few minutes of *alone*.

She got thirty seconds.

Husband finished his waltz and came downstairs to send an email, chatting lovingly with his wife who tried to seem interested and smile as she read an article. While he folded some towels, he mentioned the mess the boys had left in the bathroom after their bathtub escapades with their action figures. She sighed and stood, thinking that while she cleaned the bathroom, she would at least be alone. [At this point, Mama should have called her boys to clean up their own mess, but she was feeling particularly martyr-like this evening...]

She got ten seconds.

The boys hollered that the girl needed to go potty, so Mama dropped sopping towels in the washer and headed up the stairs, grumbling internally the whole way. I don't know what I was thinking. Five, maybe ten minutes alone? Ha!

She took sweet girl to the bathroom, then sank to the floor in the hallway, head resting on her knees. Little Man squawked from the bedroom; her window was gone. What happened? I never even used to need alone time. What if I wanted to read a book? Or learn a foreign language? It would have to be in the middle of the night, 'cause if I can't even have a moment to tidy a bathroom or read an article, how will I ever add anything else to my day?

And she cried soft, dramatic tears of self-pity.

Bewildered husband helped her to her feet and held her close. She scooped Little Man into her arms and kicked ballet slippers and stripped-off clothes into the hallway that a little girl had left in Mama's bedroom. Boys quietly cleaned up the new mess and put it away, without being asked. Daughter pulled on Mama's pocket and asked for a bedtime story. Little Man buried his head in her shoulder, hugging in his own baby-sweet way.

And the mama knew.

She didn't want to be alone. Not anymore.

'Cause she didn't want to miss a single minute of this.

Besides, while she held Little Man in her lap and read the bedtime story upside down so little girl could see the pictures, the writing looked like Russian.

That counts as a foreign language, doesn't it?

The End