Saturday Afternoon Update: My Long Weekend Alone with the Kids

It is going surprisingly well, so far. Kelly left for the west coast early Thursday morning, and I’ve made it to Saturday evening with no significant problems. The kids miss their mom, but neither of them has been overly stressed about it. The Little Man, who is getting better with math, reminds me each morning how many days are left until she gets home.

The biggest issue we’ve had took place Friday morning. We had big storms Thursday night. Friday is normally a “sleep in” day for the kids when Kelly is home, but I wanted to get them into school right at 7 am so that I could get to the office and avoid any traffic issues due to the weather¹. It got them to school right at 7 am–only to discover that several classrooms had flooded and they weren’t sure whether the school would be open. Rather than leave the kids there and have to come back shortly to pick them up–should the decision go in that direction–I bit the bullet, took them home, and wrote of the work day as a loss.

The kids have been incredibly well-behaved, and helpful. They’ve cooperated with me in every way and that has made things easier. I’ve also taken a page from what I’ve learned by writing every day, and I’ve planned ahead, using small bit of free time here and there to get ahead of dishes, do some laundry, clean out the cat litter, etc. Getting behind is where I get into trouble, but I’ve managed to avoid that.

Today, we had soccer and ballet at 9 am, then came back home, then went to a birthday party at 1 pm, and we just arrived home a little while ago. The Little Miss is out cold, and the Little Man is watching Frozen, which I hope will put him out as well. I might be staying ahead of the curve, but I’m fairly exhausted.

I have managed to keep up with my writing. I wrote over 1,100 words on Thursday, and almost 1,400 words yesterday, all of them coming after the kids went to bed. I’m about to squeeze in some more writing after I post this.

Kelly is back from her trip tomorrow afternoon, and I think we are all looking forward to that. And then on Monday, the construction crew arrives to tear up our kitchen in order to remodel it. It will be interesting to see how well the writing progresses during the 2-3 weeks when things are banging and clanging and dusty and the kitchen is more or less useless.