I just did the most amazing thing. I dozed off on an airplane while reading a magazine. What is happening here? Is it true? Am I really on an airplane without children for the first time since 1999?

It must be happening because I know for a fact I haven't read a magazine on board an airplane since my son was born – I gave up packing reading material years ago – and yet the evidence is here on my lap. OK, so it's a parenting magazine and not Newsweek, but that just makes it all the more astonishing: I'm a mom on an airplane without children.

God bless my ever-generous, long-suffering, creative-gift-giving husband, and God bless discount airlines. I am winging away on an actual girls' weekend with a friend. Ha! Did I just shout that out loud? I can hardly contain my excitement. The freedom is making me light-headed. OK, maybe the dizziness is due to the fact that I woke up at 3 a.m. to catch this cheap flight, which also may have contributed to my dozing off earlier, but my point is the same: I could fall asleep. And I did it, without endangering a single life or risking the annoyance of fellow passengers because of my unsupervised children.

I wonder if I look as stunned as I feel. Can the other passengers see me floating here, without the weight of responsibility and extra carry-on luggage? I see that the other passengers are engaging in small-talk with the people next to them. Interesting to see that people still do that. I used to do that regularly, too, flying back and forth across several states between home and college. I guess I just didn't realize people still talked so casually on planes. I've been limited to "I'm so sorry," "Excuse me" and "She's just very tired" for a lifetime it seems. Well, the lifetimes of my children anyway.

I usually spend plane trips simultaneously feeding/entertaining/distracting a baby on one side while using any available limbs to hold down the legs of the unfortunately tall toddler on the other side. It's surprising how forcefully a 2-year-old can kick the seat in front of him, but the jumping, cursing, red-faced passenger 18 inches away leaves no room for doubt. Instead of grown-up small talk, my mouth is usually alternating between singing soothing songs to the baby and spitting threats into the ear of the understandably-restless kicker. Awareness of this schizophrenia is not lost on me. Is it too much to hope that a weekend away could restore my brain to its former powers?

When I prepared for this little adventure, I sat down with pen and paper after the kids were in bed, ready to scrawl my usual three-page packing list complete with columns for "Grace," "Thomas," "General" and finally "me." (Wonderful hubby packs for himself.) My own column is almost an afterthought, my personal items being far less catastrophic if they're forgotten. But this time my own column was the only column, the whole list! With only myself to think of, did I even need a list? Would my motherly traits of distraction and forgetfulness follow me on a grown-up trip, or would they stay behind with the kids, sneaking into my husband's brain instead? Deciding I'd better not risk it – I was gifted with a weekend away, after all, not a miracle – I continued with my list.

I had to chuckle at how easy it was to jot down toiletries and a few clothing items I'd like to bring along, reminding myself I didn't need to calculate for spit-up, spilled juice (inevitably red) or grease-stains from stroller wheels that rub against my jeans as I lug the folded contraption up stairs. Not this time.

My list seemed so short, but the full range of potential started to dawn on me. "Book" I wrote down tentatively. "Journal!" I wrote next. "Bubble bath, nail polish, ear plugs" I scribbled with gaining speed. I blessed my husband again and then packed...in a carry-on suitcase. The novelty of this alone was almost more than I could bear and the trip hadn't even begun.

So in the wee hours of this much anticipated day, I tip-toed quietly out of the house so as not to wake the family, locked the door behind me and giggled as I rolled my little carry-on bag to the car. The car. My husband's tiny, clean car. Not the van fitted with our two children's car seats plus a spare for carpool days. Not the van with Cheerios ground into the carpet and "Barney Sings in Outer Space" in the tape deck. The car with a grown-up radio station tuned in and no snacks in sight, ground in or otherwise. I drove through the pre-dawn darkness in blissful silence and picked up my friend and fellow escapee, her own carry-on, travel coffee mug and giddiness in hand.

At the airport we breezed through the normally tortuous trip from parking lot to shuttle bus to terminal to check-in desk to security line. How do we normally do this with children in tow? And why do we bother? We discussed this at a small table, enjoying still more coffee as we waited for our flight. But we found that even as we attempted a mature conversation we kept interrupting ourselves every few minutes to marvel at being able to have this conversation. It was as if the habit of disjointed conversation was so firmly engrained we couldn't even break out of it when the children weren't around to interrupt us.

The call came to board the aircraft and we purposefully exhibited no rush to get on. We didn't have to be the first in line "with children or others requiring assistance or a little extra time in boarding." Today we weren't gate-checking strollers or strapping in car seats. We were carrying reading material.

And now here we are, already two hours of light reading and napping into our weekend, preparing to land in our chosen city of freedom and adventure. Our tray tables are stored and our seats are in their upright position. We didn't even have to argue with any knee-high people about why the tray had to be put away. Of course we don't know the answer to that question ourselves, but at least today we didn't have to make anything up.

If the flight can be this enjoyable, we're in for one heck of a weekend.