Day 1
Get up early. Make coffee and healthy breakfast for kids. Assemble equally healthy school lunch. Start laundry. Brush and braid kids hair. Arrive at school well before the bell.
Celebrate a quiet clean house with a cup of coffee. Spend day puttering around the house and internet. Exchange witty text messages with spouse as he orients himself with new surroundings.
Stay up most of the night reading smutty romance novels.
Day 2
Get up. Ask twitter to deliver coffee. Drop kids at school just before the bell. Realize that neither has combed hair or washed face. Laugh it off.
Wash dishes. Fold laundry. Send text messages to spouse. Realize that he is not at the social media friendly conferences that you are familiar with and that the phone strapped to his belt with a protective cases is only ornamental in public.
Accept your communication black out as heart growing stronger strategy. Bake muffins.
Day 3
Refuse to get out of bed. Moan on twitter, complain on facebook. Demand sympathy from anyone who will listen. Deliver children to school in some state of readiness. Pick up Starbucks.
Stare blankly at the walls in your house and wonder when your husband is just going to call already. Half heartedly clean the kitchen but step over 18lbs of toys on the floor.
Chat happily when your husband finally calls. Take it in stride when he needs files emailed for his presentation, 16 times. He needs you and you will be there.
Thank your mother in law for feeding you and your children dinner.
Day 4
Same as Day 3. Only no presentation file emergency and you have to make dinner yourself. Fall asleep on the floor of the kid’s room while singing them to sleep.
Day 5
A blessed PA day and no school. Make note to teach kids to make coffee. Congratulate yourself on borrowing 8 books on CD to amuse your children. Offer food every 2 hours.
Decide all parenting problems are a result of having to cajole, force, screech and holler to get your kids to school on time. Wish for summer.
Bathe children. Enjoy a TV dinner.
Day 6
Reluctantly clean a pile of dishes you’ve been ignoring for 2 days. Hold your tongue when you realize that while the kids were listening to stories they were shaving crayons. Vacuum, scrub and mop crayon shavings.
Totally lose your cool when they attempt to shave more crayons on the just cleaned table and floor.
Drive to the airport. Decide it’s totally fair to make your spouse drive home.
Once home hide in the bathroom with a scotch to shave your legs. Ignore anyone asking about dinner. Smile when dinner is ready and you didn’t have to make it.
P.S. It isn’t a good idea to drink scotch while handling a razor. Shave, then drink.
Yup. Sounds about right to me.
It’s a tough job.
Day 6 is everyday for me.
Ya, me too. Except the leg shaving part.
I’m SO glad Ben never goes out of town without me. I don’t think I’d handle it as elegantly as you have.
I’m not sure elegant is a good word… Especially the part with the crayon shavings.
Getting kids out the door for any appointment (school included) is the worst torture
Torture- that’s a good word.
Shave, then drink, got it.
I need to remember that. Often.
I hate leaving home for business, because I know my wife goes through a very similar set of responses.
But, boy, life sure is easier when you don’t have to get the kids out the door for anything, isn’t it?
So much easier. Though they make a lot of messes when they are home.
And yes, when shaving your face never drink during. Yikes!
Now I’m scared. Sean’s going on a week long fishing trip end of July. At least there will be no school then.
Books on CD, lots of stories on CD. And hide the crayons.
You’re married, you don’t have to shave your legs anymore.
True but I wasn’t sure how much leg modelling I was going to need to do in my sock knitting video. I wanted to be ready.