Home Alone

I am home alone.   I don’t have a husband.   There is no dog.  And there are zero children either away or asleep.   I didn’t lose them, I promise.   It’s a strange feeling though, having a place that has some portion or all of my family here to be empty entirely except for me.

My husband is out with one of our neighbors watching the new Terminator movie.  My children and dog are on the way to my in-laws house for three days of fantastic vacation fun with their grandparents.    I’m not sure they realize what’s in store for them.  Nana and Papa have a full schedule of activities and events planned for the two of them.  

We packed them up today and I had them pack their backpacks with whatever they wanted to take.  My son put in some transformers, an Etch-a-Sketch and some Lego-type bricks that light up as well as some other small items.   My daughter filled her backpack almost exclusively with the ABC wooden blocks Aunt A gave to our children two years ago.  

We’re joining the children on the Fourth of July for some family fun.   I’m looking forward to hearing about the fun they will have had.   In the meantime, I’m not sure I remember what it’s like to have no children, no laundry, no dishes, no cleaning up after little people and keeping them fed and being an argument arbitrator and all the other things that go on with being a parent.  

I guess I’ll find out shortly…

The Big Boy Update:  My son, “Daddy, do you want to be a dinosaur?”  Daddy, “no, I like being a person.”  My son, “but dinosaurs are tougher.”  My husband, “I know.”  My son, “If you were a dinosaur you could protect me better while I sleep.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter handled disappointment well today and I was proud of her.   She decided she wanted pop tarts for breakfast (a special treat) and selected one from the chocolate box.   I told her she had to go to the potty and get underpants on since it was now morning and I’d get it ready for her.   I then did a switch on her and got out the brown sugar cinnamon pop tart opened a while back that hadn’t been finished.   I put the single pop tart on her plate and went back to my work.   I heard her making sad noises.   When I came to see what was happening, I saw her breaking off pieces of the pop tart and looking sad.   She said, “I picked the one from the chocolate box but this is the one I got.”   I said I understood how sometimes it’s hard when we don’t get what we expect and I understood how she felt.   Had she tried the pop tart and what did she think?   She eventually tried it and ate it—which I had expected would happen—even though she was disappointed.   She didn’t complain or yell.  I was proud of her.

Fitness Update:  It was a mishmash day of a little bit here and a little bit there.  I ran two miles in one mile increments and got some cardio in while at the house this morning.   It doesn’t seem like I did much looking back on it, but it is a whole lot more than I ever did before I had my children.