Tag: temporary single parenting

Day 2 – Missing

When you’ve been with someone for a long time (13 years in our case) you have little things that have become habit.  I normally don’t notice the missing “links” in my day when Etienne is gone, but for some reason this year it’s harder than usual, even though it’s only for 5 days.

Not hard as in I’m-going-to-fall-down-and-cry-hard, just I’ve-noticed-it-more-this-year-than-normal-hard.  I’m wondering if it is because I’ve been taking him for granted or whether I’m just that little bit more in love with him than last year this time?  I’m leaning toward love.

For example:

Last night I was throwing an extra blanket over our bed and there was no-one on the other side of the bed to smooth it out.

Taking out the trash.  Not a job I normally do.  Not a job I would like to do on a regular basis either thank you very much.

I find myself wondering what we need from the shops, only to realize that I can’t ask him.  Not that he would care as he is stuffing his face with all kinds of meat he doesn’t ever get at home.

Not being able to spoon.  I love spooning.

I dialled his office number to tell him a funny story, only to realise he’s not there.  (that was a special facepalm moment)

I get to read to the kids every night.  I’m loving lolling around with them on the carpet, reading books in no particular hurry.  I’m wondering why I don’t enjoy it that much when he’s around?

I miss not setting his place at the table.  Dinner is always a big event at our house, it’s our family catch-up time.

Having at least 1 child in bed with me at night (Isabel, for most of the last 2 nights), being able to cuddle and then still have enough space to roll over to my side of the bed.

But most of all I miss my buddy, the person I most enjoy talking to.

Only 2 more sleeps!

PS: I’ve just realized that we have been together for a 1/3 of our lives.  Wow.

PPS: All this peace and quiet has given me the opportunity to try out a new granny square pattern.  I have made 16 of these squares and was almost done with this square last night and will make 16 of them too so that I have 2 fair sized blankets for the girls. (I found the website via one of  my favourite crochet websites, Attic24.)  Then to start with something for Daniel for his bed.  By which stage it will probably be December.

Etiennelessness Day 1

Last night was the first of 4 Etienneless nights.

I had a vision and a mission and a plan of action for keeping it all together and having an event-free supper and bedtime procedure.  This went for a complete ball of shite approximately 10 seconds after I waltzed in the door. Of course.

By the time I arrived I knew I had an hour to put together a mince pie and steam-fry some broccoli as the rice was already made.  This would keep me bang on schedule to have the kids in bed by 8pm and some quiet sanity time and an early night for me.

I should have known when I walked in the door and our 3 children were perched on the kitchen counter listening to the Titanic soundtrack.  Loudly. They looked depressed.  I wanted to vomit.

Megan was kind of hovering around, with that “I really need to tell you something, but you are not going to like it” look.  As it turns out, when my Mom had arrived just before me she decided to lock our front security gate.  With Megan’s house key.  That was now stuck in said security gate.  And the lock broken.  I went into “It’s fine, don’t worry about it” mode and ushered Megan out the defunct gate, all the way to her car and trying not to glare at my sheepish Mother on the way back.

I had also called the house several times to check on random things yesterday afternoon specifically to check whether our Wild Bag had been collected from the Deli and somehow I was given the impression that it was there, waiting for me on the kitchen counter in all its organic glory.

It wasn’t.

So I do a mad little spin in the kitchen, trying to re-adjust my carefully laid plans and STILL have supper on the table at a reasonable time.  This was a hard task as by this time Mignon was crying because my Mother had retired to the lounge to play a card game with them and someone had committed the crime of Not Letting Her Win. And my Mother was holding her whilst she was sobbing and sending out the “Your own Mother should be holding you when you are crying” vibe loud and clear.

So, I chopped the onions, delegated the mince and ran out the door to go to the deli.

Dinner was only 20 minutes late and the kids in bed 15 minutes after their usual time.  They were really good about reading and going to sleep.  Bless them.

All in all not too bad in the end and this morning also went relatively well, there was no shouting and no-one was harmed.

Tonight is roast chicken which my Mom is making at our house, so hopefully it will be a little calmer.  The sum total of effort required from my side will hopefully be vegetables. (she says whilst knocking her head)

PS If you are wondering about the broken lock, my Dad went off in search of a padlock and I now have a big-ass make-shift (dog) chain and padlock on the gate, so I’m very safe thank you very much.

PPS I am now wondering whether my Mom is going to be able to figure out our oven and having visions of how to explain “the Thermo fan sign” over the telephone.  Oh well.

PPPS:  our home ADSL has been broken for the last 3 days with no word on when it will be fixed.  This does not please me.

Raining and pouring

I’ve been a little grumpy the last few days. Etienne is away on a work thing tonight, which means I am herding cats today and tomorrow.

At the end of the month he is also going away for 5 whole days (of which 2 are a Saturday and a Sunday) on his annual, very well-deserved, boys’ trip.

I have stocked up on happy drugs, vodka, wine and invited myself to all our friends, so we should be fine. Getting 3 kids mobilized is a true team effort at the best of times, not because the kids are bad so much, it’s just that events aren’t always as synchronized as I would like them to be. Yes, OCD, I know.

If they do everything together it’s manageable, but if one of them is dressing, one is eating and one is making the biggest poo on the planet and shouting to have their bum wiped (MAMMA KOM VEE MY BOOOUUUUDE AAAFFF!!), it gets a little tricky. I would lie if I said I don’t get annoyed.

It went pretty well this morning, the only hiccups were Isabel demanding to wear a pair of stockings with a hole as big as my fist because “they like to poke it with their fingers” and Daniel that refused to brush his own teeth. I refuse to argue with Isabel, so she went to school with the stockings. I really don’t care what they think.

Even the drop-off went like a dream. I zipped into a parking bay right in front of Daniel’s school gate, bundled him out of the car, gave him a big fat smooch and a hug at the gate and off he went. I caught the light green across a busy intersection, pulled in at the girls’ school, they hopped out of the car and bounced into school and weren’t bothered at all when I left.

I then tried calling the house early this afternoon to chat to our live-in domestic lady. No answer. I kept calling until the time that Megan was supposed to arrive home with the kids, by this time rather frantically, to see what was going on.

Megan then tells me that Sylvia is sitting “sleeping” at the kitchen table and they had to wiggle their way in through the back gate as she wouldn’t answer the door. She was sitting right next to the phone that had been ringing for the last hour. I admit, I jumped to a rather obvious conclusion that involved alcohol as it is a rather stern conversation we have had with her before. I had a little freak-out and called my Dad to try and get to the house as quickly as possible. She couldn’t stand up straight, so he suggested she rather retire to her room to “rest”.

By the time I got home she was falling around her bedroom and there was that lovely boozy smell, and the house was a complete tip. My Mom and I then asked her why she was drinking and she said she was “tired”.

I know this might sound like someone’s middleclass problems, but I am absolutely furious at having my children exposed to that. And on the one day that Etienne isn’t here. And I have to go to work tomorrow and worry about my house and my children. She has been banned from the house for the day until Etienne gets back and we can decide how we want to deal with it.

To top it all off Daniel finally managed to lose his first big front tooth that has been loose for absolute ages, so there was a bit of a scuffle to round up money and cheese for the tooth mouse.

At least the kids seem to not have noticed much, but I did tell them tonight that Sylvia “wasn’t well” and that the 4 of us have to work together as a team tomorrow morning.

Let’s hope.

Edit to add: I also literally stepped in dog shit when I got home today. Figures.