This past weekend (long weekend actually) Dad was out of town work a work/personal trip. That meant mom had 5 full, long, very long, very very long days of spending quality time with Gabriel, Michael and Isabelle. Getting to be experience "single parenting" was a treat and made me realize just how much I don't like being a single parent. Seriously, I don't know how single parents do it. I raise my praises up to them, because for me those 5 days were long (did I mention that?) and I couldn't wait for Dad to get home.
I may have mentioned it before but it seems every time Dad has to travel, all H-E-double hockey sticks breaks loose. Last time Dad left town, we implemented a rule that the longest he can be gone is 5 days. After 5 days mom looses it and has a major break-down. Dad's decided they aren't pretty and would rather avoid that situation from ever happening again. Let me say in my defense, I think I deserved a little freak out...
Last time dad was gone, the passenger side window of his new car cracked in half (I have no idea how), which meant I couldn't drive it because it was a security and safety issue, so I decided to drive the van. The boy were at their summer program on the day I normally work a half day and of course cutting it short as I raced from work to pick them up from school, I got to the car to realize the battery on the van was dead. Never mind the fact that it was 118 that day (yes during our hottest days of the year) and I had just biked to the van. To top things off my cell phone battery was also dead, but thankfully allowed me to make one last call to the school to tell them I was going to be late. The not-so-friendly secretary answering the phone, had no sympathy and told me that someone needed to pick them up immediately or they'd have to call appropriate officials (I won't even go further into that story). Thankfully God gave me a hand and allowed one more phone call on my
you have less than 5% battery left on your phone and I called my cousin Andrea, who rescued me from the secretary calling the "appropriate officials." Meanwhile, I was still stuck outside in the heat begging complete strangers to assist me with jumper cables. Now this is where I take responsibility, I should have had them in my car, and that reminds me, I still need to go buy some for our cars. I asked 12 different people passing by for help... 8 said they didn't have jumper cables (which assured me, I'm not alone in being unprepared for these situations), 2 people said they had to race to campus for class, 1 was late for a meeting and one said he'd go get some and come back (which he never did). Thankfully the lucky 13th person was able to help me. A kind man, actually on his way to a rehab meeting, said he didnt' have much time but he'd be happy to help. As we talked, I realized he was about my dad's age and was as genuine and genuine as they come. He did everything he could to help and when I offered to give him money he kindly refused and said, "Just try to help someone else when they need it." I agreed, happy to! I drove home and afraid to turn the van off for fear it wouldn't start again, I left the van run, out in the 118 degree heat for the next two hours, until I could figure out how I could get it fixed and still have means of transportation to get to work the next day. Turns out, in desperate situations, taking a vehicle with a cracked passenger side window, isn't all that bad. It can be done and it was. Thankfully Dad came home a day or two later and was able to help me tackle all that happened. And while those situations don't seem all that bad, it was overwhelming for me. Hence, the new rule about mom not being able to handle more than 5 days alone.
Insert last weekends most recent 5-day trip. As the days of Jarrett's upcoming trip approached, mentally I pumped myself up. I can do this, I said. Last time's trip was a fluke, all will be okay this time. I convinced myself that I had to plan fun activities for us to do, or a)the kids would go stir crazy at home, which b) would result in mom going crazy and c) that makes for a very unhappy house for everyone left home together for 5 long days in a row.
So I made a list of things we could do. It went something like this:
- Sew Michael's Tae Kwon Do badges, let him play in his uniform
- Take kids to Party City to look at Halloween Costumes (so they can dream of what they want to be next year)
- Take Gabriel to baseball practice
- Visit the zoo
- Go Swimming
- Paint fall pictures
- Set up a tent and let the kids sleep in it
- Have a family movie night
- Take kids to Peter Piper Pizza and let them play
- Sew Michael his Halloween batman cape
- Go to the library and check out new books and movies
And while I didn't know if we'd even get through half of the "fun" items on my list of activities, it was my attempt at keeping the weekend fun for not only Gabriel, Michael and Isabelle, but also mom. In looking back at the list now, I see that we were actually pretty successful in accomplishing most everything on the list.
Friday night after the boys got home from school, I helped them set up a tent in their room. Having no idea how to set up the tent, I told myself, I can handle this, and together Gabriel, Michael and I figured it out. All of the kids were thrilled and spent hours in the tent pretending it was their new home, working on their "homework" in there and figuring out ways to entice Isabelle to leave their tent as she was "constantly ruining" all their stuff. On Friday night I let the boys sleep in the tent only to wake up at 3:12 a.m. to find the light on in their bedroom. Turns out they were up playing and "didn't realize it was the middle of the night." Ya right boys, you can't fool me. Back to bed they were ordered.
On Saturday we took Gabriel to baseball practice, which means I had almost 2 hours to find ways to entertain Isabelle and Michael. Thankfully snacks do a great job at keeping their attention, and after that there was a great pair of stairs near the practice field that they spent a lot of time playing on. And after that became boring, they moved onto investigating the spiders and their webs near the building with the steps we played on.
It wasn't until a dad of one of Gabriel's teammates came over and said, "Um, I'm not sure if you know this, but those spiders are black widows, you might not want to have your kids playing near them." Good to know, I responded and we moved onto pulling flowers from a bush nearby. Pulling flowers was great entertainment, although I felt partially guilty for them deflowering the entire bush. However it was a great distraction and I internally asked for forgiveness from the flower gods and the park officials.
Saturday evening we watched a family movie which the boys loved and all turned in early. I tried to watch an adult movie for some adult interaction but don't remember seeing anytime past 8:30 p.m. Seriously 8:30 on a Saturday night.
Awaking early on Sunday morning I told the kids we'd go to the zoo and since we were up and ready to roll by 6:30 a.m. we were at the zoo ready to walk right on in before we realized they didn't open for almost another hour. Thankfully snacks again saved my day. The kids loved the zoo and while it was still hot (triple digits) we plowed through all of of the exhibits and found new parts of the zoo we'd never been to. One area as an example is the petting zoo. The boys loved it and Isabelle too. I'm not sure how many times I had to tell the kids to get down from the fence and that they could not climb in the pen with the bulls.
Isabelle loved the sheep and as she said baaaa she pulled as hard as she could on the wool still attached to them. They "baaa---d" back telling her they didnt' like her too much. And then it was time to pet the goats, or in Isabelle action "pounding the goats"
The zoo attendants assured me the goats didnt' mind (they didn't seem to they just laid there like nothing was happening) but other parents made comments and gave me looks, so I tried my best to keep reminding her gentle petting was better than the two handed fist punches to their 4 stomachs. Upon leaving the zoo the boys saw a really cool play house they insisted I take a picture of. They've been asking for weeks for us (Dad and Papa) to build them a Bat house and the one they saw at the zoo, seem to fit their image of what they want. While they begged me to go to Lowe's to get the wood, I crushed their dreams and told them they'd have to wait.
Upon returning home and realizing we spent 3 hours in the hot sun, I was exhausted but not the boys. Michael continued to play in his "bat cave" aka tent, while Gabriel went outside to play with the neighbor boys. As I cleaned up the kitchen I heard Isabelle walk toward Michael's room and immediately I heard the slam of the door. Isabelle then screamed and I responded just like one of Pavlov's trained dogs. "What's going on?", I said seeing both Michael and Isabelle outside his bedroom with the door shut. "Mom, I locked our bedroom door so Isabelle can't get in and wreck our stuff." Grabbing the handle and praying he only pretended to lock the door, I said, "Michael I don't think we have a key for your door" and sure enough the key we so openly keep on the door frame above his door, did not work. Yep that's the key for the old door lock that was replaced years ago. Realizing I now had a problem on my hands, I checked the other bedroom keys to see if any would work, no suck luck. Michael, I said, "you're going to have to sleep out here because I don't have a key." "Mom," he retorted, "we can just break the door down and get in" I reminded him we wouldn't be adding any more costs to the already long laundry list of things we have to fix and are waiting for the money tree to bloom and provide means to fix. I realized I'd solve that problem later and let Michael stew for a bit about how long he just might be out of his bedroom.
Meanwhile Gabriel had been outside for a long time so I went to the garage to see the boys playing ball, baseball that is in the garage. "Gabirel, please play outside." "But mom its too hot out there, we can play in here." Never minding the fact that Dad's car (the one with the new passenger side window) was in the garage leaving them less than a stall to play baseball in. I said, "please play outside" and returned to Isabelle now crying about something else Michael or Jack had done to her. As I calmed Isabelle down I heard a huge WACK from in the garage and went outside to see all the boys pretending as if nothing had happened. "What happened Gabriel?" "Nothing mom, we just hit the ball that's all." Just a few minutes later, garage baseball was over and Gabriel was coming in the house. I followed behind him going back inside the house , tapping the garage door opener to close the door as I went inside. Hearing the door start to close, I then heard it immediately stop and refuse to go anywhere. Yes, the garage door has been broken too. I knew then what the WACK had hit. Awesome! (sarcastically) was all I could say and inside I sent them so I could go back out and investigate. Insert Mom feeling like I felt earlier this summer on one of dad's earlier work trips. After giving it a minute or two look, I gave up, knowing the three of them were all inside together, and that trouble was brewing, I pulled the release cord on the door, manually pulled it down and locked it. Inside I went to hear a screaming Michael- "Mom-Isabelle's standing on the table!" Racing to the kitchen, I pulled her down, walked her to the couch, grabbed a book, sat down and collapsed into the chair. I sent Dad a text, "we may need to revisit the 5 day absence rule... maybe 2 days is all I can take."
We survived our weekend together and I think the kids had fun. In the end I was able to get the boys door open after using some tools I found in the garage and I didn't even have to break the door down. The broken garage door I saved for Dad. He needs to know how much we need him right?
While I love my children, I love being a mom and I love the adventures we get to experience together, I openly admit, being a parent is hard. Its exhausting and they push me to limits I didn't even know I could reach.
Until next time,
Angie
