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Observations and Rants from a Psuedo Single Mom

In no particular order…

  • Justin has been gone again all this week for training. He’s been sleeping in a hotel room by himself in a king-size bed. He gets to sleep without being woken up by an early-bird four-year old, snoring dogs, noisy neighbors, or nocturnally-crazed cats. He wakes up, works out in the hotel fitness room, has breakfast, goes to training for a few hours, goes to lunch at a restaurant, goes back to class for a few more hours, goes to a nice extended dinner each night with his classmates/co-workers where none of them are cooking or doing dishes, they have adult conversations and rarely need their food cut-up. He then goes back to the hotel, spends a couple hours doing what he wants, then goes to bed at a decent time (i.e. before 11pm). My days have been the complete opposite, with the added fun of a 2-3 hour daily commute, work all day then for an additional 2-3 hours at home a few nights, and I’m coming down with a cold. Guess who had the gall to tell me he was “so tired”? I’ll give you a hint: he’s taller than me and lives in my house slightly more than he’s gone.
  • Gavin is pretty sensitive to change and always has been. Justin being out of town is no exception. Usually the first day or two Gavin will act up and spend an extra special amount of time in Time Out. After that little adjustment period he begins behaving better and becomes his usual sweet and helpful self, especially with Cooper. However, the entire week he will pepper me with such loving phrases as “I don’t want you, I want Daddy!” or “I don’t like you. You’re not my friend. I want Daddy,” or when I pick him up from school, “where’s Daddy? Why isn’t my Daddy here?” I’m considering selling him to the Gypsies in exchange for some jewelry or exotic spices.
  • Anytime Justin is gone, or even on nights that he gets home late, Maggie will flip on “watch-dog” mode and become hyper vigilant about protecting me, the kids, the house, and the world from our cats. You know, the cats that have been around here longer than her.
  • However, once she passes out at night, you know, when the actual boogey men are out, she’s worthless and doesn’t hear anything. Thankfully silly Ginger takes over and barks at shadows. Or the wind. Usually at 4am.
  • I pulled a jar of applesauce out of the pantry and apparently it had been the victim of another jar’s demise while still at the store because it had some dried applesauce over one side of the jar. I put it under running water and start wiping the dampened applesauce off the jar and got cut on both thumbs by a small piece of glass. Both thumbs then proceeded to bleed profusely because I somehow hit a dang artery in each of them. But I didn’t know that I was bleeding that bad because it didn’t start until I saw blood on the coffee filters I was picking up off the floor a minute or two later (courtesy of Cooper). Thought he was bleeding until I realized (1) I never heard him cry, and (2) I saw the blood running down both my hands. Let me tell you, typing while both thumbs are bandaged is more difficult that you might think!
  • Work has been interfering with my sleeping, blogging, blog-reading, plurking, and wine drinking (due to the several nights of additional work). But I stick with it because it pays for the stitches and blood transfusions I seem to need for my thumbs.
  • Wanna hear about Cooper’s ears? You know you do! They’re actually doing great. He has been so incredibly happy all week, checking out all the sounds that he seemed to have been missing the past two-plus months. He has been repeating more and more of what I say and is responding better to what I say to him (i.e. “close the door”, “turn off the light”, “time for bubble-bath”), and has been singing in the car because he loves to say “la la la” with his tongue sticking far out of his mouth. It’s hilarious. Even better is that he has been laughing. Like throwing his head back and letting out these huge guffaws! And he loves doing it and tries to get Gavin to laugh with him (and Gavin is usually more than happy to laugh along with him, since he used to goad Cooper into laughing). The two of them just sitting there laughing in each other’s faces, watching Gavin let Cooper tackle him and squish him, and the picture below is what got me through this stressful week. Well, that and knowing Justin will be back Friday and will take over the kid-duty on Saturday morning, locking all lifeforms out of our room, letting me sleep until 9am in peace…whether he knows it or not.

About the Author

Colleen

This is a blog where I will share my adventures and mundane tasks as a work-out-of-home-mom. I now have 2 kids and my wonderful husband, so the juggling has gotten a little bit more tricky (man-on-man defense). We also have 2 dogs and 3 cats (we used to have 4) so as you can imagine, our household is pretty busy. Since I never feel like I'm being listened to, I figured I'll just start talking at the general Internet community and see what happens.

7 Comments

Madame Queen

You know what kills me about when my hubs goes out of town? If I dare make any kind of comment about how tired I am or what a rough couple of days it’s been, he gets all defensive like I’m blaming him and is like “Well, it’s not like I wasn’t working.” Yeeeeah. Right. Sleeping in a hotel. Eating at restaurants. No kids to listen to. Yeah, you were “working.” Give me a break.

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Jesse

If you strike a deal with the Gypsies, I totally want in on it. I’ve got a 4 year old who is being very contrary. Hang on to your sanity – and a bottle of wine! – Justin will be home soon. You deserve a break, Momma!

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LL

Working and traveling are both easier than being home with two kids (or one kid!). I’m so glad Cooper is feeling so much better and wow, what a difference in his hearing and speech! I swear that if my next kid has more than two ear infections in a row I’m demanding tubes.

And that picture is ADORABLE. It made me laugh when I saw it 🙂

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Roger

Sounds like a fun week, for Justin!!

You will not be able to sleep until 9 on Saturday, you know. Because then Gavin will want YOU! 🙂

Have fun.

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Tranny Head

What a cute picture – I’m glad to hear that Cooper is doing much better. I hope his speech continues to improve with his better hearing!

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caramama

What a great pic! And how cute about them laughing in each others faces!

Sorry about Justin being out of town and the thumbs getting cut. It’s always so hard when I’m doing it alone. I don’t know how single parents manage, but I have so much respect for them.

I’ve been crazy busy with work, too. It’s why I’m only now catching on your (and many other) blogs.

So glad to hear that Coopers hearing is better and he seems to be doing well post-surgery!

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