T-Bone just returned from several days in Chicago and all bets were off in his absence.
Clean house? Writing? Showers? Who cares. As long as I kept everyone alive, reasonably well fed, and in no worse shape than he left us, I told myself I’d consider it a win.
I’m proud to say that in the end, we managed better than that. Not only were we all alive and well, but quite well fed and the house was pretty damn clean. Cleaner than usual even. No one was sick or had any additional broken bones and mama was even mostly sane.
Hallelujah!
In the days leading up to his trip, I was nervous. Being home with the two girls for a couple of days completely on my own was daunting enough, but then Poppy went and broke her leg and the idea of being home with two girls, neither of whom can walk, had me in a panic. T kept telling me it would be fine and I took his brushing off as a sign that he wasn’t listening to me and my worries. But when I finally yelled at him and told him to stop ignoring my concerns and just let me whine, damn it!, it turned out he was just more confident in me than I was in myself.
“Remember how in college, you pulled a 4.0 for the first time the semester you were a full-time student, holding down two part-time jobs, and an unpaid internship? You work best under pressure. You know this.”
Touché.
Nonetheless, we were all super excited to see T last night. I may have held things together all right on my own, but it took a lot of energy. I was basically in motion the entire time he was gone, afraid to stop, assuming I’d just collapse, unable to get moving again.
So yesterday, I let Poppy take a monster afternoon nap in preparation for his arrival around our usual bedtime. I knew she wasn’t going to go to sleep right after he arrived, so I figured she may as well be ready to party late so they could enjoy those two hours or so together rather than her having exhausted tantrums through them. And it worked… too well, in fact, as she was still awake in bed, kicking around and playing with toys at 10:30. Ha. And whoops.
This morning, our daddy’s girl was excited to see that he was still here, though not excited for him to go to work. Fortunately, he should be home in plenty of time for dinner and bedtime tonight, so we hope she trusts us that things are back to normal and this girls weekend alone was just a temporary blip in our routine.
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p.s. I didn’t keep us alive and well all on my own while T-Bone was gone. Far from it, really. So BIG thanks to the friends who came to play, brought take-out, and helped keep us busy when we started to get stir crazy. Though my immediate local village is small, it is mighty :)
