The Piglets have left to spend a few days at their grandparents’ home a couple of hours drive away.
It’s the school holidays here. Two weeks of “Muuuuum! He stole my seat!” and “I didn’t break it, I swear!” Except by some small miracle we get to shuffle the kids off for the first week. Hallelujah! Okay, so I love my kids dearly, and even had the opportunity to go with them to Nana and Poppa’s house, but chose not to. The allure of many an hour doing Precisely Zero Parenting certainly held its appeal. So I stayed. It felt strange packing their little suitcases-on-wheels knowing it wouldn’t be me reaching into the backseat to break up the fights on the drive over. Or battling with them to brush their teeth properly lest they fall out during the night. Or, you know, tucking them in tonight.
But they’re gone. And for the last two hours Talented Hubby and I have been official residents of Geekdom, as we sit across the room from each other, tap-tap-tapping away on our respective computers (we are so lame!) I keep checking over my shoulder for a Small Person. I even commented to TH that my mouth keeps wanting to form the words “SHUT THE DOOR!” (it’s cold here at the moment and we’ve had the heater on quite a bit - the kids never remember to close the doors as they barrel through them). And its gloomy and rainy and I don’t know, wintery outside and I really want a Piglet snuggle. They’re awesome. And it’s only the first day!
It’s not all doom and gloom though. There are benefits to not having the kids underfoot. For starters, as it is the holidays, if they were home they’d be in Ultra! Excited! Mode! all-the-blessed-time, LOL. Throughout the school term they’re all packed off to school by 9am and forgetting for a second the usual housewifery tasks, my days are fairly loosey-goosey. Hubs is often about, but he’s often not as well, depending on his roster. It’s especially busy in the mornings and afternoons, but the days are pretty quiet. Holidays are always a bit of a shock to the system after 10 weeks of easy-going days.
But this week? I don’t have to set an early alarm (or any alarm for that matter). I can sleep till noon every day if I wanted to (don’t worry, I won’t). With Talented Hubby on dayshift, he’s out of the house before I wake and gone most of the day. I don’t have to drop everything at 3pm to pick children up from school. I can cook spicy food the kids won’t touch in a pink fit. TH and I can go out to dinner without having to mortgage the house (seriously, have you noticed how much even good ol’ McD’s adds up to for a family meal these days? Sheesh). All this glorious time stretches out in front of me this week and all I can think of is, I wonder whether Miss Moo’s hair got into the carbonara sauce at dinner? Did Nana remember to clip it back? I really should organize their closets. Does Master J need one new pair of jeans or two? Did Boofah remember to RSVP to his friend’s party? And, when will they be back again?
I have this dream in my head that I’ll be able to knuckle down and get that fourth bedroom all fixed up as a surprise for Boofah when the kids return on Friday. I’ve wanted to finish it off as a surprise for ages, but until this week all the secretive spy work was going to have to be done in the space of one school day, in order that he didn’t smell a rat. With four days up my sleeve, I have oodles of time to get it done. The weather forecast is gloomy, and it’s a perfect rainy-day activity. And with TH out of the house I can crank up the Ballads playlist on my iPod/stereo whatsit. Only there’s a great monstrosity of metal in there at the moment (the home gym, aka The Beast) and we still have to work out where to put that until it can be picked up by the relative who put dibs on it. But fingers crossed.
I’m not reaching for the phone to call the kids. Honest…
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