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Week 37

Some days I can’t believe it’s only been 37 weeks. Other days it seems like it’s been 97 weeks. Like most of last month when Justin was gone for about four weeks. Any of you familiar with my Facebook updates got to witness my mental breakdowns (like crying hysterically over missing Gavin’s bus from daycare to school) or me wondering if I’d make it through the day and not have any casualties. Doing the psuedo-single-mom thing is tough and generally ill-advised. Doing it while pregnant is just plain stupid.

I’m still mortified by some of my undocumented behavior during Justin’s last weeks of back-to-back travel. I’m a yeller. I come from a very big and very loud family full of yellers. We yell when we’re happy and excited, and we yell when we’re pissed. Simply put, I come from a loooong line of yellers. My kids are used to it, too, and are rarely surprised when I start shouting about something. Except when I have hit the wall and start bellowing like some kind of drunk fishwife. One of those mornings I yelled so loud that both kids burst into tears and the baby in my belly jumped like he was startled. I was instantly and completely ashamed. I spoke to both kids separately after we had all calmed down and apologized to both of them for losing my temper like that.

The more I thought about my behavior and how my interactions have been with my kids over the past several months, the worse I felt. I was tired of always feeling rushed, always feeling angry, always feeling behind in everything that needed to be done, and always feeling as if I couldn’t take time to do something nice with my kids so that maybe they’d have just one memory of doing something fun with Mommy. They were, understandably, constantly asking about Justin, but it got to the point where their questions and requests to be with him instead of me started to wear on me, too. So I got desperate and started looking for something different for all of us to do as a family before Baby #3 came. I just needed to get all of us away from the house, work, and hit the “reset” button. I checked a few kid-friendly destinations, like Sesame Place and Hersheypark, but neither were open to the public until May. I took suggestions and did online digging from there. I finally settled on doing a long weekend at Massanutten Resort, outside of Harrisonburg, VA…a mere 2 hour drive from our home! They had some great spring specials going and after cornering Justin with a wooden spoon we decided to just go and have some special family time.

Unfortunately my phone is not very waterproof, and I forgot my little Canon Elf, which is not waterproof, either, but well…anywhoo…didn’t get as much pictures as I wanted. But these are the ones I did get when we went to Massanutten Resort about two weeks ago:

Massanutten 2010 pics

(sorry…having some technical difficulties and too annoyed to fight with it right now…check the link or check back in a day or two to see if I got them posted)

I couldn’t believe how beautiful this place was! The waterpark was a LOT of fun, as well as the pool at one of the rec centers (we went there before the waterpark opened), the restaurants has good food, the condo we were at was gorgeous, and the service from all the employees was phenomenal. Justin talked about going back there instead of a trip to Virginia Beach. There is just sooo much to do at Massanutten that is included with your visit, and even more for very reasonable prices. Worth checking out if you’re looking for something that has a little for everyone. We easily could’ve stayed there for a week but I’m glad we got the few days together that we did.

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.

1 Comment

Nicole

Oh, Colleen! I am continually in awe of all that you do with Justin gone so much of the time. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to work fulltime, parent two children and be pregnant ALONE. I am so glad you were able to get away as a family of four for a few days!

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