Mama's Log: Day 1

As many of you know, Justin is away for 4 days on a mission/prayer trip to North Dakota. This means that I get to play single parent for these 4 days. Previously, 3 days had been my record and I'll admit I believed to be my max…but apparently I'm supposed to be stretched to longer bouts of playing a single mom. (side note: I'm totally in awe of single moms or military moms. I do NOT know how they do it!)

Through all of this I've felt like I could related to Star Trek. Ok not really, but for some reason the whole "Captain's Log, Star Date…" idea seemed to fit. So….

Mama's Log: Day 1

Justin left at 7 pm on Tuesday. I got the kids to bed with a decent amount of ease and headed to the kitchen where our roommates had friends over as they do on most Tuesdays. This meant yummy bruschetta…Kyle makes the best bruschetta, someday I'll bother getting the recipe. Verity was still awake…we put her in a box.

Stayed up late with Verity the night owl watching The Princess Diaries. Yes, it is not quite an old movie, yes it's best watched by teens, but it was in the house and this is the type of stuff I watch when Justin is gone. Chick flicks.

Woke the next morning to our usual. Kids watched a movie for the first hour so I could wake up a bit on my own time. Made them their breakfast smoothies then started school. My voice is not used to reading aloud after summer break and it's slowly dying. The first few weeks of school are brutal on my voice.

After school, we had lunch. I made the mistake of making a full batch of homemade biscuits…I should have known better; I know how good they are. I think more biscuits found their way into my mouth than the kids' mouthes.

Nap time did not go well. Everly slept but the boys did not. Now they don't always take a nap and I know that to most they are ridiculously old to still be taking naps…but you know what? They will occasionally and so we still try for a nap. If they don't nap, I'm fine with them being quiet in their room…. they were not quiet. They were in each others beds, rough housing, talking, throwing pillows…repeatedly. Privileges taken away. No video games for a month (they had just played for a few days after their last month off of video games). I was planning on taking them to the park after nap… but no. We now didn't get to go.

Everly on the other hand was nice. She took her usual nap and when she woke up, I asked her if she could watch a show while Verity and I napped.

Dinner was a new version of mac & cheese. Kids seemed to like it. I'm not a huge fan.

Then after dinner movie time. This is what we do when I'm the only one with the kids…I resort to movies. In my defense, it was Biblical and educational…Joseph: King of Dreams…. Not the most accurate but those movies never are.

Bedtime was… interesting. The boys went to bed as normal. But Everly….oh man….When something doesn't go her way, it's all over. So the whole time she was getting ready for bed it was, "Daddy, come back." "Daddy come back to me."

Here is just a clip of that sorrowful scene. At this point it's just "come back to me" and it's shaky because I'm holding back laughter…I'm a mean mom.

Eventually, I had Justin call so Everly could say good night.

Three kids in bed. Just my night owl and me. We decided to watch Emma…the BBC version. It's much longer and more detailed…and Dumbledore plays Emma's dad. Good old BBC.

I watched it late into the night..ok maybe 12:30. But when you are a mom that's late.

Turned the lights out and went to bed to hopefully rest up for Day 2.