Tag: Mancation

Captain’s log – After the fact

My darling husband was away on his annual Mancation last week and every year so far, without fail, there has been some form of drama. 

There was the year we got a new dog and I had to deal with getting her settled with a rather cantankerous existing dog, the year our domestic fairy drank ALL our special wine we were saving in the back of a cupboard and was found, drunk as a skunk, at our dining room table. There was last year when I had to cope with arguments around hockey and homework with Daniel. Last year was hard. Very, very hard. 

This year was friggin amazing. 

When it rained on Wednesday when Etienne left and it rained cats and dogs I thought I would come home to a leaking roof. I didn’t. 

When my garage door creaked ominously on Thursday morning I thought it would stop working. It didn’t. 

When I had to get the kids ready every morning I thought, for certain, that there would be drama at least one day. There was none. Not even a whiff of drama. Even when we all forgot that Daniel had to wear PT clothes on Friday and I had to bring him home to get changed there was no drama. We just laughed and came home and I dropped him off at school, still in time. 

When I made my second fire ever all by myself on Wednesday evening I thought I wouldn’t be able to get (and keep) it going. I did. (A fact still disputed by my traitorous children)

When Daniel and I had to go to the gym at 5pm on Friday I thought he would give me a hard time about it. He didn’t, he was a star.

No-one argued about food, no-one had a meltdown. Everyone worked together and they each had a turn to sleep with me and have a night of cuddles. We had a great time together. 

Whenever I go away for work Etienne makes it seem so easy, I’ve always been a bit jealous of how easily he chats to the kids and just makes everything look so damn effortless. I always admire how he has his shit together as much as it makes me feel bad for being the one who tends to be SO the complete opposite. The one who forgets shit. Who gets sidetracked. The list of transgressions is long.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I’m ok this year. For a long time I wasn’t. When you’re not ok kids are HARD. Who am I kidding, they’re awesome, but hard anyway. Just more so when you’re not in a good space yourself.

So. If you’re not in a good space, make a plan. Just do it. 

Get off that hamster wheel of self-loathing and guilt. Just do it. 

It’s so worth it. 

Ps. I was still ridiculously happy to see my husband yesterday, becaus I missed him like mad. And spooning. I love spooning. 

Catching up

Over the last few days I’ve been meaning to sit down and blog, but life got in the way, so I’ll give you the précis version of noteworthy events.

First there was the incident of the Lost Old Lady.  Last week Tuesday my darling husband was stopped in our road by a little old lady and her dog.  She was lost and confused.  He picked her up and took her to my folks’ place where they proceeded to call the police and neighbourhood watch etc. to ask, and I quote, “if anyone had lost a little old lady and her dog”.  It was bizarre and funny in a sad way.  I put a pic of her and the doggy on twitter and Facebook and the response was amazing.  That tweet was rt’d more than 200 times!  As it turned out she lives about 7 houses up from us in the road with her daughter.  She has Parkinson’s and dementia and couldn’t even remember her children’s names.  And all the while the kids were running around my Mother’s house like lunatics.

Etienne was also away on his annual Mancation (a word I saw in this column and loved) from Wednesday until Sunday this past week. Usually I dread the 5 days of single parenting, but the kids were lots of fun this year and I actually chose to not do too much with other people, rather opting to have them all to myself.  It went really well until the wheels came off at around lunch-time on Sunday.  I think they were just desperately missing their Dad by then. But so was I.

On Thursday night the tooth mouse had to make an emergency visit and left money and a note.

On Friday night I made and decorated a cake for Daniel’s BFF’s party on Saturday and my parents came over to put the kids to bed. And by “put kids to bed” I mean I waited for them to leave at 9pm and then I put them to bed.

On Saturday night Isabel was complaining about a headache and sore neck.  After having a quiet little freak-out I asked her to look down and she was fine to move her neck, so I could downgrade my immediate diagnosis of Meningitis to didn’t-have-enough-water-today, but with a mental (haha) note to keep an eye on her.  She (which means that by default WE) was, however, awake between 2 and 4 am on Sunday morning, so my patience was also wearing a bit thin by lunchtime on Sunday.

Imagine my joy at seeing my husband on Sunday afternoon, followed by the dimming of said joy when he proceeded to entertain me with some crafty snoring on Sunday night. That then made 2 nights of very little sleep.  I was not a happy camper.

This led to a rather long and sad day on Monday and my retiring to bed at exactly 20h10.  I was asleep approximately 5 minutes later and only woke up when Etienne woke up with a shriek at 6h25 as I had forgotten to set the alarm in my haste to get to bed.  So, I had 10 hours uninterrupted sleep probably since I was a teenager.  Take that sport lovers.

Lastly I have a question pertaining to the magic that is my son, that epitome of stroppy 7-year old joy: Is it a thing for boys to always ALWAYS have their hands down the front of their pants and be playing with their jewels.  I know it’s a toddler thing, but it’s getting a bit old now.  Or should I just get over it?  I jokingly asked the other day whether he enjoys playing with his “tottie” and he beamed up at me and said Yes Mom, I love it.  No words.  I have no words.

Then, I’m mortified to ask, but our Megan Au Pair resigned yesterday as she is starting a full-time job soon.  So now we are in need of someone to collect our kids from school and take care of them until Etienne comes home.  It’s really only a 2 hour stint a day as it is all we can afford, but it makes a massive difference to our kids.  So, if you know of someone reliable that would take good care of our brood, please ask them to contact me via email at rouxtania9 at gmail dot com.  Thank you!

And lastly, I want to thank everyone that left comments and tweets and FB comments and sent DM’s and whatsapp messages of support about my last post. It means a great deal to me, thank you so much!