April 9 14

I used to dread when my husband was away. Business trips, ski trips, press trips. Dread. The dread would begin the day the trip was added to the google calendar and it wouldn’t stop until he was unpacking souvenirs from Utah or DC or Las Vegas.

The reason for my dread was two-fold, really.

Reason #1 is that the percent of times that my children would fall ill while I was single parenting was 100. 100%. Every single time he went away someone—or everyone—would have the barfs, ear infections, or strep. It was almost comical. Almost.

Reason #2 was because being outnumbered 3-to-1 kind of sucks, even when your kids are mostly good, as mine are. My regular juggling would become even jugglier. Homework, extracurriculars, dinner, baths, bedtime — they were all on me.

But somewhere along the line, things changed and the dread completely disappeared. I stopped looking at his trips as a punishment for me, and started looking at them as more of an opportunity. I kind of like when he goes on trips. The dynamics change around here and for some reason, even though I’m doing more (read: everything), somehow it feels easier.

I miss my husband when he’s gone. Of course I do. We make a great team, and I really miss having someone to debrief with at the end of the day—to share silly stories or compare war wounds, to have someone to binge-watch Vikings with, to have someone to take Indy the Wonder Pup out at 3am.

I rarely do things with all three kids on my own—it’s either all five of us, or we are split-squading. But with my partner-in-parenting-crime off Vegas-ing, we are an automatic foursome.

And you guys, I even took our little foursome to see a Jays game. We were invited by Honda and since my son is a baseball player living in a hockey world, I knew I couldn’t say no.

So I took them, Han style.

(Solo)

(See what I did there?)

jays-game-home-opener

I KNOW. 

I threw them into the car and drove downtown {and outside of my comfort zone} and circled the downtown core for an hour to find a parking lot that wasn’t full and I raced to get two of them to a bathroom for two bathroom emergencies. I stood in three different lines for three different snacks. I moved them around when they got too crazy.

And you know what happened?

We had a great time. 

baseball-game

 

We also decorated cupcakes and took the bikes out of their winter hibernation and got together with friends and had cereal for dinner and watched copious amounts of Broadway videos on youtube and sang badly and stayed up too late and had brownies for breakfast and finished a 1,000-piece puzzle and had weeknight playdates and still managed to get all the homework done and get to school on time and make it to swimming and dancing.

{Also I got full control of the remote and got to take up the entire bed.}

Win. 

But it’ll sure be nice to be a five-some again.

And it’ll be even nicer to have someone to cook us a real dinner again. 

 

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  1. I can relate – I’m not sure why it’s easier now but maybe because the kids aren’t as demanding (read: young toddlers never stop).
    I also have taken the opportunity to watch the entire Breaking Bad series in 3 wks – I also love not being woken up in the middle of the night.

    Comment by Sarah on April 10, 2014
  2. I think you need a solo trip to Chicago sometime in the near future!

    Comment by Kristabella on April 10, 2014
  3. We have fun when Matt’s away, too. He’s missed, but it’s a different dynamic. And I can watch sappy romantic movies when the kids are in bed with nobody griping about it. 😉

    Comment by Angella on April 11, 2014
  4. There is a fun dynamic in single parenting it. Nikki and I will always be the two musketeers, and I was scared at the prospect when we became this, but now? Love it. Love it. Love it.

    Comment by Chantal on April 13, 2014
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