Karen went out to Houston for the Mom 2.0 Summit this weekend sans baby, which means Daddy was in charge. She left Thursday late morning and my sister was gracious enough to take Courtney for the afternoon until I finished up at work to start the second solo weekend since Courtney arrived 15 months ago.
I’m really not sure how single parents manage. I guess you do what you have to do, but it must be so incredibly hard. It’s like working two full time jobs, providing very little personal time.
Karen and I have a pretty good routine worked out. Monday through Friday I go to the salt mines to earn a paycheck and Karen tends to the baby and stuff (stuff being the technical term for a ton of other stuff). I try to leave the salt mines as close to 6:00 PM so I can spend a little bit of time with Courtney before I start the Bath, Books and Bed routine at 7:00. When the weekend rolls around, I take Saturday morning duty so Karen has a chance to rest, and Karen takes Sunday morning. So we both get a little bit of a break from the daily grind at least once a week.
So this whole flying solo bit really makes for a long couple of weeks. It’s like working 14 days straight by the time next Sunday rolls around.
I know providing child care all day is no picnic, but if you do it every day you have a much better handle on when and what she likes to eat, play, etc. Being in tune with the schedule is much easier. So while I take Saturday morning and share the remainder of the weekend, it’s not really enough to keep up with her evolution at the detail level. And the baby knows something’s up and isn’t necessarily herself either. So it’s more challenging (aka stressful) to figure things out than it is for Karen.
That all being said, I think I fared pretty well all things considered. Our first stop on Friday was to the mall to get her a strawberry and banana smoothie, which she just LOVES. Then we stopped off at my office to show Courtney off to my coworkers and partake in the weekly Root Beer Club. Root Beer Club is where people rotate bringing in root beer for the group and we hang out and have a drink to end the week – sort of a team building event. It’s gotten pretty competitive as people try to outdo each other in taste, locale, etc. Finally, we met some friends out for happy hour. For the record, it was at a family friendly sports bar/restaurant. They even had crayons for Courtney to eat. Since we were gallivanting around all afternoon, Courtney didn’t get an afternoon nap, but she took it all in stride like she normally does.
Saturday was even more ambitious! In the morning we went to the first swimming class of the season and in the afternoon we visited the Georgia Aquarium, both of which I’ll write about separately since they were fairly interesting on their own.
On Sunday, Karen took pity on us and took an earlier flight and was home by lunch. Courtney was quite excited to see her to say the least. Since the weather was so incredibly nice we ventured out for lunch at Fellini’s Pizza and then went to Chastain Park for some fun.
All three solo nights were abnormally difficult. Girl just had a hard time sleeping and kept waking up. Now that Karen is back I guess we’ll find out if it was because she missed her. Considering how much we did on this long weekend and the complete lack of sleep, this week in the salt mines should be extra-special fun.
I spent a little extra effort to ensure the place looked good for Karen’s arrival because I know that sort of stuff is important to her. I cleaned up the kitchen, straightened out the toys, and even made the bed. The place looked a lot better than when she left! She either didn’t notice, or wasn’t impressed. At least I tried.
Anyway, I guess that’s about all but the relatively poor images from my iPhone…
We know who was really in control in Karen's absence.
My sister made some stir fry Thursday night and Courtney liked the chopsticks
Ready to take over the corporate world. Plenty of time to sit in a cube, don't rush it kid!
Reading books on my back. Impressive when you consider it's a self portrait from an iPhone laying on my stomach.
Climbing on Daddy
More Daddy climbing
A big smoothie for a little girl, but she can put it away!