Forget separate vacations for spouses as a way to rejuvenate a marriage.
Try separate vacations for parents as a way to rejuvenate a family–or at least as a way to get the house clean.
It's simple: One parent takes the kids away to do something fun–and the other stays home with dustpan and broom.
What, you thought the stay-at-home parent would be out partying the whole time the kids are gone?
It's not like a middle-aged mom or dad is suddenly going to go out bar-hopping until 2 a.m. every night just because there's no 8-year-old sitting at home in front of the Xbox waiting to be yelled at about doing homework.
I actually love staying home to clean. I do tons of laundry, including every bedspread, curtain and cushion covering; I vacuum the cobwebs off the ceiling; and yes, I even wash the windows. I go through every shelf and drawer and throw away toys that haven't been played with in a year and that won't ever be missed, as long as I never mention them again.
While I'm cleaning, I blast retro music that my 13-year-old would be horrified to have booming over the CD player–Bruce Springsteen, 10,000 Maniacs, Paul Simon. When he's home, he wants to play rap music, which I don't love hearing, so usually we don't play anything on the stereo. But when it's just me, I dig out the Traveling Wilburys and the Counting Crows and dance around the living room in between mopping, sweeping and dusting.
Don't feel sorry for me either. I'm not the least bit put-upon to be spending my glorious time home alone cleaning the mess. There is nothing more wonderful than having an uncluttered, spotless home, and when the kids get back, it even stays that way for a week or so.
And I don't feel cheated about missing out on the trip, either. Recently my husband took our boys away for a weekend so I could do a big spring cleaning. They went to a nice hotel with a pool an hour from our home, saw a movie, had Chinese food and then went to an NBA basketball game.
OK, I admit I felt a little sad thinking I'd missed out on all the fun. But when they came back, I realized I was lucky to have stayed home. At 2 a.m. the night they were gone, my younger son started barfing all over the hotel room, and the front desk said there was no one in at that hour on the housekeeping staff to help clean it up.
Compared to having to deal with that, washing windows didn't sound so bad.
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This week's advice: Schedule an occasional separate vacation, where each parent takes the kids away for a few days on his or her own–mom and the kids one time, dad and the kids the next. The stay-at-home spouse can do whatever he or she likes–but cleaning the house while the kids are away can be its own reward.
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