Life without kids, I don't think so

I will be sitting in the Airport 24 hours from now waiting to board my plane. I am so excited, but so anxious about it at the same time. 6 days alone with my husband, what WILL we do? I am already stressed about leaving the boys. I know it will be great for us, but I will miss them like crazy! If you don't have kids it may be hard to appreciate the sentiment of my anxiety. Before you have kids, there are so many different things that define your relationship. There is a broad scope of topics to discuss and plenty of time and energy to spend discussing them. Children redefine a relationship. There is no getting around it. You can look on to having kids and think that won't be you, but it will. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, just different...
Life without kids... The alarm goes off and you hit snooze several times before you actually open your eyes. You wake up and hug or kiss your husband, you can take a shower and brush your teeth, you have time to blow dry your hair and you might not wear that shirt that has a stain on it.
Life with kids... A kid walks into your room at 6 am and climbs into bed between you and your husband, kid .. 2 begins screaming for you to rescue him from his bed. As you pick him up you realize his diaper has leaked AGAIN and so you clean him up, change all the sheets and begin your day. Throw your hair in a ponytail, put on the shirt that is on top of the basket of clean laundry (who has time to put it away?) and don't worry if there's a stain, you are bound to get something on it anyway. Maybe you get to take a shower if you can get them to nap at the same time at some point during the day.
So, for the next six days I get to live scenario ..1. Sounds nice, but I sure am going to miss that little guy climbing into bed in the morning and curling up next to me, and how excited the other little guy gets when a come into his room and say "goodmorning". I wouldn't trade it for anything, but getting away will be nice. I just hope I relax.

I've been getting a lot of good advice from older, wiser people recently. On Sunday an old friend, who will be a grandfather soon, shared with us about his life and marriage with kids and his life since kids. He related to us that it is okay that having kids changes you and your relationship. Once a parent, always a parent. You can have a healthy marriage, but a substantial part of it will revolve around your kids, and someday they will leave your home and you will have to get to know each other in a different way. All the roads you travel will just make your marriage happier and stronger if you travel them together and communicate all along the way.