Flour on the Floor: Guilt Baking

For the past eight years, my husband and I have taken one trip a year away from our children. When we were younger, we yearned to explore far-flung, exotic places. We’d walk till our feet hurt and stay up late. Now our trips away are usually a weekend in some warm place where we skip the pool in favor of a nap in the room. My post-children vacation needs can be boiled down to this: an air-conditioned room, a comfortable bed and thick curtains.

This year has seen a dramatic increase in my sans-children travel. It’s been an off year filled with two planned trips and two unexpected ones in five short months. All of this means lots of planning and a very acute leaving-the-children-behind guilt. “Why do you even have to go?” and “Why can’t I go?” are the whines that greet the retrieval of our suitcases from the third floor. After many long-winded explanations met with more pleading and negotiating, I have finally reduced my response to this: because.

The unspoken reasons? Because sometimes I like to be called “Pamela” instead of “Mommy.” Because I enjoy a meal without the threat of spilled lemonade dripping off the edge of the table onto my new skirt. Because when daddy goes to bed, he doesn’t ask me to check on him in five minutes, then four, then three, two, one.

It’s important to get away, but even I can admit that this year it’s verging on overkill. Though it’s billed as pure escapism, travel is stressful. In fact, on stress measurement scales, vacations rank just above Christmas as an event that can negatively affect your health. More stressful than the gaggle of relatives around our holiday table? That’s saying something.

For me, planning a trip without kids means the work of crafting a quilt of activities and childcare provided by a combination of paid sitters and volunteers and sometimes family (they aren’t local and our travel is most often to visit them). I spend a week preparing supplemental notes, maps, diagrams, and powerpoint presentations.    

My last task? Baking. I conceived the idea of baking before my child-free trips as twofold: first, it offers a little one-on-one bonding time before the separation and second, it leaves something behind to remind the kids that even though I’m not there, I still love them. I can provide sustenance even in my absence. Another friend tells me of her own pre-trip baking which yields chocolate chip pumpkin muffins for her kids. We both agree, it helps ease our conscience at leaving.

I think it’s a gender-specific concern. My husband experiences no such feelings. He doesn’t cram in last-minute connections with the kids and he doesn’t leave anything behind (except the seat up). Moms seem to feel responsible in a way that most fathers just don’t. My husband is an engaged father in every way from silly dancing to discipline. He tucks the kids in at night and plays cards with them in the morning before work. But when he leaves, he doesn’t look back. I, instead, run myself so ragged in those pre-trip days that the baking is often done on the last evening and at the expense of packing which will keep me up till 2am before an early flight.

For this specific trip, my husband and I are going with several other couples to Las Vegas. Because it’s such a hedonistic vacation--eating, drinking, gambling, dancing, napping, spa-ing--my guilt is especially acute. It will take quite a yummy dessert to take the edge off of this. I let the kids pick the treat they want to make and they choose blondies--basically vanilla brownies. They don’t love chocolate desserts but they do love anything with chocolate chips. These blondies also happen to have white chocolate chips and pecans.

We gather all of our ingredients and the kids are so silly and animated that I silently congratulate myself on my excellent idea to carve out this quality time. My son eyes the mound of flour and brown sugar in the mixing bowl and notes that it looks like Disney’s Thunder Mountain Railroad. My daughter suggests a chocolate chip taste test since we’re using two kinds of semi-sweets in an effort to use up several bags. We have Nestle and Ghirardelli. Out of habit, I almost always buy the former but the test is an eye opener. Where the Nestle chips are simple and overtly-sweet, the Ghirardelli ones are deep and rich and worthy of eating alone. I am swayed. We are having fun.

I toast the pecans per the Baking Illustrated instructions and, of course, burn them. I offer a sample to my kids so they can see what happens when you cook them too long and my daughter says, “I’ll try a burnt nut the next time you bake.” In fact, she’s always keen to remind me of the time I started a kitchen fire with a toaster oven full of pine nuts. My husband, in an effort to smother the fire, grabbed the closest thing he could find which just happened to be my daughter’s constant companion--blue blanky. Blue blanky bravely fought the fire for about 3 seconds before it, too, burst into flames. Our first week living in the small town of Glencoe had the fire department at our house twice and my daughter bawling at the sight of her newly-black blanky. Good times.  

Now, older and without dragging stuffed animals and blankets behind them, the kids are all about helping in the kitchen. And arguing. They bicker over who gets to stir, whose turn it is to read the numbers on the scale and which one of them got more licks of batter from the spoon. When my son cracks our last egg on the edge of the bowl and it slithers down the outside of it, sending us to the store to buy more, I find myself counting to three to calm down. I realize then that I need a break. A funny thing has happened: I no longer feel quite so guilty about leaving. Furthermore, I stowe some blondies to share with my Vegas friends. What’s better than homemade decadence in an already decadent city?

After days of exhaustive preparation and bear-hug goodbyes, I am a limp noodle in the back of the airport-bound cab. By the time I am in the security line though, I am happily marveling at how everyone holds their own tickets like such big boys and girls. No one is asking for a snack or to go potty.

As we sit by the Vegas pool, four moms surrounded by young girls in heels and makeup with their swimsuits, one friend’s phone starts pinging with texts from her daughter. On the other side, my friend squints at her watch and adds the two hour time difference till her daughter gets home from school so she call call her like she promised. Even when we are off, we are on.

I debate touching base with my kids but remember that in the past it has really upset their apple cart to hear from me in the middle of the day like this. It makes them remember I’m gone. Instead, I’ll wait for them to call. I’ll let them provide the cues about their need for me. Besides, a guy who looks like a “Talented Mr. Ripley”-era Jude Law in mirrored sunglasses just sauntered by. I decide to let the kids stay in their moment while I stay firmly in mine.

The first time my husband and I went away, we left our son with my in-laws. I fretted about his missing us. I imagined him miserable. When we walked in the door at the end of our trip, I saw my son and bent down on my knees, arms outstretched for him to run into. He took a look at me and ran to his grandma instead. I was shattered. It seemed to be some indictment of me as a mother when really it was just the impulsive reaction of an overwhelmed 18-month-old.

What I didn’t appreciate at the time--as I cried and cursed--was that we all need time away from each other. When I’m gone, these two rapidly-growing little people learn to rely on others, even themselves more. They need a break from me too.

Now I am back home and there are no vacations on the horizon. Our next separation (and its a BIG one) will be in three weeks when my son leaves for sleep-away camp. Then I’ll get to see what it’s like to be the one left behind. I wonder what he’s going to bake for me.