Richmond Parents Monthly | Family Magazine

Without Kids, the Zone is Eerily Silent

My parents have taken all three of my children for their first-ever extended trip away from home. I have been waiting for this all summer, so why do I feel as if a piece of me is missing

10:00 a.m. The Sound Void When my parents drove off with our children, my husband and I came back into the house and stood in the kitchen like zombies. We were nervous—my parents were driving our babies all the way to Pennsylvania, in a car, without us.

As I yelled last-minute reminders through their car window, my mom reminded me that she had actually raised three kids of her own. Then she gave me THE LOOK and asked, “What? Did I do that bad of a job?” I shut my mouth.

The house was too quiet: not shhh, the kids are sleeping quiet, but a total absence of sound. I could still see evidence of my children—the 4-year-old’s hair clips were sitting in a pile on the kitchen table along with a half-empty box of crayons and a notebook—but I couldn’t hear them. Without the kids, the house seemed dead.

At 10:15 we decided to move to the living room so we could read the paper in peace—a rare luxury—but we kept talking, about anything, just to fill the void. When the phone rang at 10:35, Rick and I both sighed in relief: finally, some noise. I made him put his sister on speaker phone.

11:30 a.m. FREEDOM! While my husband was in the shower, I snuck a quick call to my mother’s cell phone. She didn’t answer. Burying all worries deep within, I vowed to embrace this time alone with my husband .

We actually “took a nap”—WITH THE DOOR OPEN! At 12:45 p.m., we went to a pub for lunch. On the way, I put in my “Pulp Fiction” CD and listened to inappropriate tracks 1 and 2 for the first time in 10 years.

At 3:36 p.m., I arrived home and immediately called my mom. I grinned as I heard my 9-year-old and 5-year-old bickering over who got to keep a candy wrapper. (Seriously—I’m not making that up. One of them could be holding dog poop, and the other one would want it.)

But hearing their voices filled the silent void in my heart. Our house was a home once more.

Richmond-area writer and teacher Colleen R. Lee lives with her husband and three kids in the Frumpy Zone. Visit her at www.frumpyzone.com

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