I want my husband to come home. Now.

Why yes, honey, when your
father comes home I am going
to run away and then go
commit myself. 

As many of you know from my Facebook posts, my husband left Thursday for a week-long trip. To the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As in, 24 hours of travel, three flights and five hours time difference. Things are getting interesting around here, and I can't help but think of all those moms who raise children while their significant others are on their third business trip of the month or deployed for months on end. How on earth do you do it?!


So far we've had lots of treats. Popcorn before bed, ice cream and Wendy's, basically things that I wouldn't normally do if dad were around. As much as I knew I would miss him, I wanted this to be like an extended slumber party type fun time for us as we wait for him to come back. I planned on staying up late, working on projects, bachelorette-type stuff. "Cereal for dinner? Surrrrre!" So far, though, I'm too freaking exhausted at the end of the day to make any of those plans happen, and have done laundry most of the time. Lots of it.

My dear son... what can I say. He has apparently regressed in toilet training or just is missing his dad, I don't know - but he has literally spent most of the time since daddy left pooping. In his pants. Oh, the joy.

For some reason, it seems to happen at the most inopportune times. Like when I'm on the phone. Last night I saw him emerging from the darkness, coming upstairs to meet me, a wipe in hand and underwear missing. Panic. What were you doing down there? Is there more? How did you manage to find the wipes in the dark? I thought. I went downstairs to check and flipped on the hallway light - at which point the bulb blew out. Lovely. 

I've realized how much I need my husband around. Not just to help out with the children (although that's an integral part of it) but other things - like to motivate me to keep up with laundry. And not eat pints of ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner. To hold me accountable. And moving. The first day was kind of like a party, but now the fun has worn off and we're going postal. I mean, I cleaned the toilet this morning. I think he's rubbing off on me to the point where I actually clean when he isn't here. Wow.

In the meantime, there's always laundry. And after I did my third load, I came to the horrifying conclusion that there were indeed poop chunks in my washer. Great, now what?

And that's just day two.