Jill's Adventures in Single Parenting

I also survived Dave's trip to California. I just slept with the boys when they were both sleeping, and didn't expect to get more done than I reasonably could get done while also watching both of them. The ironic thing is that my house ended up being just as clean or cleaner than it is when Dave is also around, and I was less stressed out about housework. Becuase I cleaned as I went I kept up with things quite well. In fact, I discovered an amusing fact. Most of the women I talked to were slightly reticent in admitting it, but would generally say that they felt more relaxed taking care of their children and households by themselves than they did when their husbands were around. I think its just the general lack of sexual tension and unspoken expectation in the air (these were all women with very young children, where many things tend to get left undone . . . ). I was getting bored by the end, and was glad to have Dave home to help, but it was kind of refreshing for a few days.

My abseloute lifesaver (no, Sharon, I'm not just writing this because I know you read my blog) was my trip to Nipawin in the middle of the week. We got away to somewhere where I had company, Andrew had distractions and someone else fed us. Despite the complete chaos that descended upon the household (Sharon's youngest was jealous of my baby and had a fit, and her middle child just decided one day to take away everything Andrew was playing with -- in fact she woke up from a nap just to take a book from Andrew and go back to sleep) when we arrived on the scene, it was refreshing. The most amusing part of the trip was when we took all our kids on an excursion to the Co-op grocery store and took over all their novelty shopping carts. Then I had to nurse Aaron, so we took over the entire cafeteria area with our children and novelty carts and me breatfeeding in public and Marie spilling juice everywhere and Bea and Andrew fighting over who go to lift the door levers on the novelty truck cart and Sharon feeding the kids crackers from a box she hadn't paid for yet. It was pretty classic. Another instance of me becoming the woman I swore I would never be.

When we got home I took the troops with me to youth group (nothing like making pizza with a dozen teenagers, a toddler and a baby). Fortunately, Andrew is starting to recognize some of the kids, and it was at our church which is familliar to him, so he did really well. The kids totally underappreciated the cd of Dean Martin singing Italien Love Songs that Sharon and I had downloaded, but I made them listen to it anyway. And of course they had flour fights, and threatened each other with hot peppers and did all those things teenagers will do.

Friday night I was sick and threw up everything I had eaten. At first I thought it was food poisoning, then the flu, but it may also have been from eating nothing but dark chocolate mini-eggs and coffee between lunch and 8:30 pm when I finished making my pizza. Anyway, I was super weak and dehydrated and nauseated and trying to breastfeed the next day, so I called up an older couple of professional grandparents in my church, and they took Andrew away to see a farm and eat lunch with them so I could recouperate.

Sunday we went to church, and Monday, Dave was home. All in all it was about as peaceful and fun as I think it could have been. Andrew was completely settled, becuase he knew where Dave was and when he was coming back, Aaron was, well, Aaron and I was calm and other than getting sick and then really bored, it was all good.