Flying Solo

"No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids." ~Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, 1986

My beloved husband has left me for 10 days to visit his parents in Sydney. Since we've been together I've left him a few times to go to France, Spain, New York, New Orleans, and Seattle (the last one being since we got married), but he's never left me before. I have to say, it's much tougher being the one that's left. He just left yesterday and I'm already missing him terribly. I miss him when I'm the one that's gone too, but being away is more distracting. When you're the one that's home, you're constantly reminded that they're not there.

Anyway, last night was my first night as a single parent. I was on solo parenting duty. I was a little terrified that I would fail miserably at the task but everything went swimmingly. I made it home in time to relieve the baby sitter. I made a dinner that both kids enjoyed eating. I made sure the kids were bathed, cleaned up the dinner dishes, and got everyone in bed. That last one was a little challenging because they were both very excited with a new dance they were learning -- soulja boy dance -- and were more interested in dancing and telling the other one how little rhythm they had than they were in going to bed. But they did go to bed, with thoughts of soulja boys dancing in their heads, and woke up generally in a good mood. I got them to eat breakfast (no small feat), walked the dog, and got the kids to school on time. Phew! My only oopsie during the evening was that at one point I used an inappropriate word to refer to a body part -- a word that the 8-year old got quite a kick out of repeating. I eventually got him to stop and to realize that it's not a good word to say. So all's well that ends well.