Flying Solo

We are well into week two of twelve weeks of flying solo on the weekdays, as Marcos rocks his internship down in Charlotte.  Week one, day one, had a few horrific moments, specifically at dinner time, so I rewound the tape, watched the ugly moments and made some changes.  Every solo mama evening since week one, day two, we have eaten over at someone else's house.  We always come bearing some combination of fresh fruit salad, french bread, green salad and brownies, because I can manage making one or two dishes, just not an entire meal.  This experience has made me thankful for so many good, kind friends who open their doors to us.  Combining dinner forces, and letting the children play together has been balm for the soul after a long day of taking care of the littles on my own.

Along with parenting solo, a few more things have been thrown into the mix to ensure an extra fun summer.  You see how baby boy is looking all comfortable laying down in these photos?  Well, he's just posing for the camera.  Baby boy in usual mode is crawling all over, trying to climb up on things, scale walls, and chew on our nightlights.  Gigi's fun twist is that she just stopped napping, and my fun twist is that I was just called as the President of the Primary children's organization at church.  It's just how we roll this summer.

But with all of this potential madness, things are (miraculously) relatively happy.  Patience isn't my strongest trait, so I think we were all a little worried about what might happen when all of the "Good Cops" left the premises (with Marcos gone, and our moms also off on adventures this summer...), but the absence of Good Cops has helped me to reconsider my Bad Cop role.  I like to think of myself as a loving mother, but I have an impatient streak that will turn small offenses into big deals, and I can become Bad Cop in a second flat.  So it's taken a lot of inner dialoguing with myself, but I've been able to coach myself out of a lot of scenarios that would previously have left me as The Hulk, big and green, with damage control to do afterwards.  I don't mind being firm when it comes to the important things, but I think the wisdom is in deciding what is important.  Being all the parent these two beautiful children have during the week has inspired me with more calm and clarity than I have ever had in this area.  Without being tried and stretched, I don't think I would have had the know-how to start making these much-needed changes.

And so, we aim to take this summer by the horns.  My daytime strategy for success is to simply tire us all out with good activities.  I'm already sunburned from our outdoor play, my legs are crazy itchy from bug bites, and yesterday we went to three different parks throughout the day, so I think things are coming along.  If you're local and you want to play or have dinner together, let's chat.  You know I won't say no.