All About Angie

Top Ten Ways to Know Your Husband Is Out-of-Town*

And you’re a single parent for the weekend….

10. You drive your party to the airport early Saturday morning. And out of sheer ditziness, you promptly run the first red light you find. Your father-in-law rolls his eyes and is secretly glad you are not going with them. However, you know that you are simply preparing them for NYC traffic.

9. As you are driving away from the airport terminal, your cell phone rings. It seems that when you took your husband’s suitcase out of the car, you *forgot* to also take out his winter coat. Whoops! Must turn around and deliver much-needed coat to husband. You are now realizing your Ditz factor is sky-high and for the next 3 days, you are solely responsible for 3 human beings besides yourself.

8. Before you even leave the airport’s main highway, the children in your car bombard you with questions like: Can we go to a restaurant that Daddy doesn’t like? and Do we have any chocolate at home? and How late can we stay up? and (my personal favorite) Can we sleep in your bed tonight, Momma?

7. The remainder of Saturday (and there is a lot of it left) is spent “cleaning” and “tidying up” and you have to laugh at even suggesting those words to children under 7. You give up (mostly) and decide to watch the movies you’ve procured from the library: Lassie (this version) and Cinderella. But you decide to hold Cinderella until later. No since spilling all your apples at once! You marvel at your restraint.

6. The Lassie movie turns out to be full of adults who hate animals (for some reason) and you spend the next few hours sympathizing with and calming down the children (which is not your strong suit). How long until that husband comes back?

5. On the menu for Saturday night dinner is: popcorn with butter and salt while watching Cinderella. On a blanket on the floor. Picnic-style. You scramble some eggs, just for protein. It all works out in the end, right? Unbeknownst to you, ONE of the children does not like popcorn because “it tastes like fingernails.” You scramble her another egg.

4. On Sunday morning, somehow you make it to church a full 10 minutes early. What?! And you thought your husband was the timely one.

3. After church, a group decides to go to Wendy’s (which is your son’s FAVORITE place to eat). Before you make up your mind to Wendicise, your son tells EVERYONE he sees that he is going to Wendy’s for lunch and invites them all to come along. While dining at Wendy’s, a big group does, in fact, show up. Coincidence? You’re not sure. But you are relieved to find out that you don’t have to buy lunch for them all.

2. The remainder of Sunday is spent relaxing and reading. The children “nap” or read books. The house should be declared a disaster area, but life is good (read: calm and no one has broken bones or bloody gashes to show for your weekend alone).

1. New York and Chicago are both expecting loads of snow the day of your husband’s return. You wonder if you will have more time to be “solely responsible for 3 human beings other than yourself”. After obsessively and meticulously checking and rechecking the flights and weather, you find that both legs of the trip have been on time. A cell phone call from your husband confirms the impending arrival of your beloved. (As you are not one for sappiness, you laugh at using the word “beloved” in your post. Who writes this stuff?)

[I can’t get this silly post editor to insert a blank line here, so I have taken the liberty of doing it myself. And I have tried it many many many many different ways. Say “Yay!” for me.]
Though I should probably not post this until he is actually home, I probably will do so now. I like to live on the edge like that. The story is that Mark and John went to witness Baby Leif’s baptism in New York yesterday. I am looking forward to receiving the full report when Mark gets here.

*This Top Ten List is kind of ridiculous because wouldn’t you KNOW if your husband was gone? How ditzy do you think I am? Please don’t answer that.

Updates Aplenty

Well, not really.

I can tell you that the “retrofit kit” I ordered to prevent the Easy Bake Oven from eating my children is on backorder.

And also, we’re having pizza for dinner tonight.

Stay tuned. If I can maintain brain power after the kids go to bed, I might (maybe) come up with something more interesting. Breath-holding not required.

UPDATED: Whoops! No brain power was found. Sorry! I’ll try again later!

Follow Up

And in case you are wondering…

This just in.

And this, also. In case you missed the first link.
See this post for background information. Poor Luke.

Thanks to Uncle Dave for the article…. Edited to add: (And Stephanie!)