family: ... I can't sleep...

... if I can't sleep with you.

Have I mentioned that I'm solo parenting starting yesterday (thurs) and continuing through Monday? M has gone to NYC, and while I won't say she was excited about the trip, I will mention that yesterday evening when I finally went upstairs to brush my teeth and collapse in our bed, I found her espresso mug sitting on the bathroom counter, as if she'd downed the double shot in a single swallow so as not to interrupt her preparations to flee, and then abandoned the mug in her haste.

This is a birthday trip, something I intended to surprise her with, but which got too complicated to actually do a morning-of "I'm taking you to the airport" bombshell. Still, she's excited, and deserves the break. After all, she's had the girls on her own twice this summer, both times for 10 days - first down in Alabama when she stayed after I'd come home, and again last month while I was in Hawaii paddling. So the math I do is (10 + 10) = 5 days in NYC visiting a college friend. Seems about right, no? (Note: I was a liberal arts, history/literature major, so that's as good as my math gets.)

So far, so good. I got both girls fed (sorta) and bathed, and both even told me they loved me last night. We'll see how long the honeymoon lasts.

This morning I have to get K ready for school (yesterday dissolved in a mess of tears when she decided that the shirt she was going to wear didn't fit any longer because when she leans over it shows approximately 1 cm of skin, for up to a second at a time), and L ready for daycare. And I'm working from home so that I can go get them at the end of their day. And then we have to figure out what to do for the next 72 hours until M gets back. I'm sure we'll think of something. After all, our new DVD player has an auto-repeat feature....