when the cat's away....

In my mind, Seth spent his four days away living it up in Orlando, while I was here functioning solely as my children's hired help. Of course, that couldn't be further from the truth. The poor boy spent hours upon hours listening to people talk about accreditation and curriculum benchmarks. ugh. Sometimes, being a college professor isn't as glamorous as you would imagine. He got back late Tuesday night and I put him to work as soon as he got back from his run yesterday. Feed E, change diapers, drive W to school, put E down for a nap. I actually got an entire load of laundry folded without any one coming and pulling the piles off the couch. E pulls, W throws the clothes on the floor when they're in the way of his roadway.

I just don't know how single mothers do it. The frustration didn't start to really set in until Sunday when both the kids decided to have a meltdown as we were leaving church. W was suffering from some mine-itis and wanted to take a train home that wasn't his and E, well, I'm not really sure what her problem was. Hunger? Tiredness? It's like spinning the wheel of chance with that child sometimes. W refused to walk to the car so I had one screaming kid under each arm and a backpack. I buckled E into her seat and left W on the sidewalk. By now, people were starting to stare. A kind woman stopped and tried to comfort W - failure. As I was trying to buckle W in (he was doing that slouchy, dead weight body thing where you can't scoot them up to buckle the crotch buckle), another kind woman commiserated with me and tried to make me feel like my kids weren't the only ones screaming bloody murder. The truth is that her two children were calmly climbing into their car and waiting patiently for their mother to stop cheering me on. Finally, everyone was buckled in but still screaming. My solution was to turn the music up. Thankfully, on the way home, E fell asleep and W stopped crying when I offered up a cheeseburger bribe. Yes, I bribe. Mostly with food, although the other day at the dentist, I bribed W with a "treat" if he would let them look at his teeth. The office had a treasure chest so I got out of that one.

Thankfully, my running didn't suffer. I was able to enlist the help of one of my most favorite people, Melinda, to stay with the kids while I went running. I haven't run more then 3 miles with the double stroller and I'm a little scared to try. I have these unrealistic images of the wheels going flat and us being stranded miles away from home, with W screaming and pointing, "Lauren! Lauren! That way! That way!". Maybe running higher mileage with the kids will be one of my resolutions this New Year but only if I can remember to bring my phone and lots of water in case we get stranded.