After 7 long weeks, the Hubs is home!  At the end of May he was offered a great job- one he’d wanted for five years and one that would allow us to keep living where we do now.  It is seriously a huge blessings that it came through.  But, there was a catch- he had to be gone from the end of June until yesterday for some hard core training over 900 miles away from home.  But 51 days apart were a small price to pay for a job he’d be happy with, so we kissed him goodbye and the kids and I tried to figure out our new normal for the summer.

I won’t lie- there were a few perks to being a single parent. The biggest was the fact that I set the schedule.  We didn’t have to worry about the Hubs or his work hours (his schedule is always erratic). If we wanted to go to the lake, we went.  If a last minute dinner invitation popped up, we could accept it and go.  My grocery bill was lower and the kids were (until the Bean’s climbing capers) in bed on time every night. I had the TV to myself and could (and did) read until the wee hours of the night with no one nagging me about the vampire garbage I watched or to turn the lights out.

It was awesome! For about a week…then it got old, fast.

We all  missed the Hubs terribly. I thought it was going to be the Bean who missed him most- I figured Scorch was old enough to roll with it. I was so wrong.  Scorch missed his father badly this summer and it showed in a million different ways, most of them not good.  The Bean did pretty well and I honestly think the fact that she’s so young helped out because she has no concept of time.   And I missed him too- his company, his help, his sense of humor and the fact he didn’t mind taking the garbage to the transfer station (something I loathe).

Y’all- being a single parent is hard, hard work. If you notice a thread of desperation in some of my posts these past few weeks it’s because I was doing it all by myself.  My parents, nanny and friends were amazing help- but 90% of the time it was just me at the kids when I wasn’t working.  I was all they had so I had to be Mom, Dad, cook, grocer, goalie, referee, chauffeur, teacher, playmate and everything else in between 24/7.  There was no such thing as me time and a lot of things, like my workouts, really slacked off.  I never realized just how much the Hubs did until he wasn’t here to do them any more.  My hat is off to all single parents- you truly have the hardest job in the world.

The Hubs came home with 2 broken ribs and a concussion and I managed a small flood and the Bean’s bedtime antics while he was gone- but we survived! Let’s just hope we never have to do it again.

At the beach before training.