Last night alone
Posted on September 1st, 2011
Well, alone as in “alone with my child.”
Actually, Pea and I have done pretty well: low key bedtimes, lots of reading, zoo outing with friends today, school two of the days for Pea. Tonight I took her into the chaos of First Thursday and let her have two helpings of ice cream after dinner.
The really sad part of this is that we don’t see M much during the week, anyway, so we didn’t have to adjust much. But since the awful year of surgeries (2009, and a large part of why our life needed simplifying), M’s latest business trip is the longest we’ve gone without seeing him, period.
We briefly toyed with the family going along, but the expense didn’t justify the destination, and I can’t say I was excited by the prospect of spending time anywhere with triple digit temps and near-triple digit humidity.
Probably the best thing to come out of this trip is that Pea learned to have a real phone conversation. The first attempt was excruciating — she kept calling him by his given name in every sentence, just like a salesperson. But tonight she did a good job and talked about her day, then handed the phone over after a few minutes. (Poor M. He hates talking on the phone, and I think we kept him on it for a good half hour.)
Fortunately, he’ll be home soon, right in time for International Vulture Awareness Day (really, I’m looking forward to this!) and a three day weekend (which, I swear on the graves of his coal-mining, union-organizing forebears, I won’t let him work through).
We could use it.
I love that…”alone with my child”. We’re never really “alone”. I always have the kids! My husband is going out of town for an entire week this month, the first time since the baby was born. And I’m setting goals for what I’ll accomplish while he’s gone. Similar to you, we don’t see a lot of him during the week anyway, and with fewer dishes, cooking, cleaning and laundry, I’m setting lofty goals of getting the baby to sleep through the night (ha!) and starting to potty train the toddler!
LOL! I was writing in my journal last night about how I felt guilty that life was — well — just a wee bit simpler without M at home (dishes, laundry, picking up). But it’s true! In any case, let me know if you need a sanity break (zoo or OMSI or something?) while he’s out of town!
Sadly, yes, it is simpler without a husband in residence — at least temporarily. However, I know some single moms and I think there comes a point (pretty early in) where it stops being simpler and gets much, MUCH harder.