Every time Dave goes away for work, which is far too often at the moment, I brace myself, I fortify my parenting intentions, I pray for congenial children, I clear my schedule and I cross my fingers.
Dave left at 3.30am Monday morning and it’s now 10.06pm Friday night and he’s still in transit somewhere between here and Wellington. I miss him!
Roll your eyes etc, what’s a week you say? Hold your horses, a week is nothing. You’re right. But any change to a family’s schedule requires a bit of juggling and shuffling around and that’s what I did this week.
Dave is the Master of the Mornings in our house. The man can literally spring out of bed after a minimum of sleep and greet his boys with all the enthusiasm in the world. Which makes up for my decidedly frowny demeanour most mornings. This week I realised I needed to get up well before the kids to help breeze through the school departure routine. I wouldn’t say I made it out from under the duvet well before Ethan and Nix but I was able to make my bed before Nix began his dawn chorus! It’s a start!
After a calamitous breakfast on day 2 when Nix descended into full blown head-banging-tantrum mode, I decided that our usual family smoothie routine was just too hard to manage on my own. We finished the week with porridge or eggs for breakfast and I made my smoothie after E left for school and Nixon was settled into play time. Everybody wins.
My wonderful Mum lives here from Monday to Thursday so she made the evening witching hour that much easier, taking Nixie out for a walk, cooking dinner or staying home whilst I ran Ethan around to swimming and rugby.
One thing I’m really conscious of at the moment is trying to reclaim some hours in my day. Because I’m falling behind…….in my life! You know how you just get stuck in a routine, you do certain things at certain times of day, on certain days of the week, and it just kind of sticks? No? Well, we needed food, it was 4.15 on Friday afternoon, a time I would never normally consider going grocery shopping, but what the hell. It had finally stopped raining so I took it as a sign and the boys happily ate their way around the supermarket. It meant a dinner rush when we got home but ironically Nixon only ate the beetroot on his plate anyway so…….could have taken it a bit slower I guess!
Anyway, it’s Friday, Dave’s plane has landed and I’m looking forward to changing no nappies tomorrow! Have an awesome weekend everyone xx
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