Shameless!

Late, late last night Aaron returned home from a week in Portugal. Before I continue, may I just brag about my brilliant husband? He was invited to Portugal to present his paper about his magical new metal discovery, and on the side he is helping to save the world.  Don't we all love Aaron? Yes we do. I was actually unware of the world saving part of his trip, until I asked him what he had done one day when we spoke on the phone, and of course he made it sound as though he was putting together a 50 piece puzzle of a clown with some pals, I only deduced the world saving part when I looked it up on the internet. Aaron is annoyingly self-effacing. Which is why I have to be annoyingly  and shamelessly self promoting . Just so you know because lots of bragging lies ahead.

I just have to say that I am almost as impressed with what I have accomplished this week as I am with Aaron. I am not one of those women who look forward to their husbands going out of town. I do not "get" those women. My husband does a LOT around here so when he is gone, I am doing twice as much as usual. Not to mention that I really like the fella and we all miss having him around when he's gone.  I have huge admiration for women who do this on a routine basis, fortunately I do not have to do it all that often.

My friend Cyndi and I have a joke that Aaron is the queen bee, and when he is not in the hive all the other bees mill around in a distressed and aimless fashion. (If you have read The Secret Life of Bees) this will make more sense to you. I once told Cyndi that when he works late we all sit around, wondering why the room is so dark and cold and why we are so hungry. His arrival home is a cue for the evening routine to begin, plus he usually makes dinner (despite my resolution). Anyway all that to say, his absences are much dreaded.

But this time I decided that I was going to embrace what lay ahead as a challenge. A "Wheeeee kids! This is FUN" kind of challenge." And if I do say so myself, I was uber-mom this week. Uber single mom.

In addition to doing what keeps kids alive and kicking, I kept the house pretty clean, I caught up with the laundry, but completely (!!), I did two pretty big university assignments, I helped the kids with their homework, I finished my Christmas shopping, I wrapped all my Christmas presents, I stole the Christmas book tradition from Julie's sister and started it (although I had to get all my books from the library-my kids still love unwrapping them each night) so thanks Jennie!

I took the kids for a long freezing cold Christmas luminarie (sp?) walk, along the way we bumped into Santa and his wife

After, we ate cookies and drank hot chocolate and sang carols with gay abandon. Much to the bemusement of the rest of the community. I'm pretty sure people thought we were a crazy carol singing polygamist family as I was flying solo, and hanging out with Nathan and Amy and between us, the children...they were abundant. Look at the incredulous expressions on that guy and that lady in the background.

I also did the Advent program from Jen Lynn's blog, which we are enjoying, thanks Jenn Lynn, I even made them hot chocolate to drink as we read every night AND I found the Snowman kind of peeps to put in the hot chocolate. This is VERY important.

I dealt with a snow day with all of them home, although look how cute they were, thanks to piano teacher Julie the boys are thrilled to be learning Christmas carols this year and the littlies are thrilled to accompany them with vocals

Baby it's cold outside! (Which incidentally, is Finny's new favourite song>: "Mommy! You be the girl and I will be the boy-OK?!  BABY IT's COLD OUTSIDE!!! But BABY.... IT's COLD OUTSIDE...."

And survived an incident involving mice and snow boots (if you understand my phobia of rodents this alone is worthy of me-and my boys, being canonized). We baked and decorated sugar cookies. (If you understand my general phobia of the kitchen and involving children in my attempts to do things in there, you will make me a saint x2 for this.) I ordered my Christmas cards (amazingly decisively!) and started addressing them (If I know who you are, email me your address won't you?), I went running and worked out every day, (although one can think of this as "me time" so maybe not so admirable). I volunteered at the school, I did some real work, I went to Gracie's kindergarten concert. It was super cute.

And you know...stuff like that.  I even gave myself a pedicure and coloured my hair.  And? I only ordered out once, it was Chinese,Friday night with friends because their kid had to have a cultural experience for scouts, and I am all  about sacrificing for the children. Oh, and I took them out to lunch on Saturday, but only because the coupons were about to expire.  Oh, and I took them out to lunch on the snow day too but that was a special treat...ok fine, so we ate out a bit.

It is possible that Aaron laced my Kashi Go Lean with speed before he left because I honestly don't know where I got the energy to do all these things with as much sleep as I have been getting, but I did, and I am deeply grateful. Seriously, I think it was definitely a matter of divine intervention. Aaron gave me a blessing before I left and I can't remember if it said anything about being imbued with superhuman energy for the week but there must have been something along those lines. And there was extra patience too! Much extra patience. I feel very blessed for that. (As no doubt do my kids)

And you know, we really did have fun. My kids said so several times this week, with no small amount of surprise in their voices. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I started a system of bribery that works really well. I gave each of the kids two of my business cards at bedtime. Each time they got out of bed, or had to be told to be quiet, they would have to give up a card. If they lost both cards they would have to miss the Christmas book reading and hot chocolate before bed the next night. If they kept one card they would get an extra surprise, if they kept 2 cards, they would get 2 extra surprises. Ah the power of bribery, works like a charm, man. Nobody lost a single card. It meant for a lot of figuring out of special surprises, but it was worth it. I once read that parents should not feel guilty about bribery for bedtime, thinking of it more as incentives. Bedtime is hard for kids and there is no reason to not make it more appealing. I totally bought into that theme this week and it saved my sanity. My kids really did deserve the treats, they have been awesome. Benj and Gabe manned up admirably regarding the Mouse Incident, and Benj even shoveled and salted our walkways a few times very cheerfully. They were all super stoic as I dragged them to my Wednesday night church obligations with the youth, and to choir practise Saturday morning. They were perfectly behaved. Seriously, I have the best kids.

The only real downer was that the remote for the TV in our bedroom went missing. I cleaned the room from top to bottom and still, it did not show up. So frustrating as the one upside of Aaron being gone means I get to lie in bed and watch mindless TV til all hours so that I can fall asleep without obsessing whether the clicking over of the furnace is in fact the clicking over of the furnace or something more sinister. But without the remote, this is a lot less fun. getting out of bed to turn off the TV when you are about to drop off has the effect of making one somewhat more alert, and the point of the exercise becomes a bit moot. Julie came to my aide last night with her universal remote. Ah, what a wonder technology is, and friends who will let you use their technology.

Yesterday afternoon, while Finny was at preschool, knowing it would be my last hour of freedom for many weeks to come (his preschool has looooong Christmas breaks), I bought myself these shoes as a reward.

And oh they are soooo much cuter in person. Even my boys pronounced them "good". I wore them to church today and since it was super cold, my feet shrank and they were sliding off . This, together with the fact that the heels are about 4 inches high made walking a challenge, but they are still good shoes. I particularly enjoyed the new perspective the additional height afforded me. I really must wear high high heels more.

I think I deserve them, don't you?  No? How 'bout if I told you they were on sale?

The last single mother hurdle entailed surviving the ward Christmas party/talent show last night, in which we performed a dramatic reading of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer (with the Richardsons). It was quite a moment in theatre history. Benj as Rudoph, spent the day earnestly seeking direction from me as to how a reindeer might really look when deprived of joining in any reindeer games. It actually turned out very funny. The kids were amazingly deadpan and expressive (all wore black except for the antlers). I WISH I had taken a photo. There was video but I think we will have to recreate it for a photo because it was hysterical. Julie even managed to transpose Rudolph into a minor key to add some extra drama in the background. That chick is good.

I was also involved with the youth fiasco skit, where I played therapist to the lost teenage shepherd who is trying to find the baby Jesus. (S/He eventually does, with the help of a GPS device). It was, I fear, bordering on sacrilege but not as much as when there was a female Jesus and Jesus (20 years later) had some mild swearing to say. I did not write the script. The playwrite however was very gracious about us axing that scene.  Needless to say it was not a Tony award winning performance, but we survived, a little lighter in terms of dignity but survived all the same.

So all in all, it was an unexpectedly great week which really shows once again, that attitude is a pretty major factor in life.  I was about to say that we even managed to escape the curse. But Gabe came down with something yesterday afternoon, so technically the curse managed to make an appearance. My miraculous flow of energy has ebbed considerably now that Aaron is home,  and no doubt in a few hours he will go down with some fancy European stomach bug. Some things are just tradition. (To be fair, my husband is extremely unwhiney and stoic when ill but that is still a brilliant clip)

Comments

[Amz]

Wow! I can't believe how much you accomplished! I do think we are given extra help when our hubbies are gone. I loved your cards at bedtime trick and the shoes are adorable!

[Julie]

I do love those shoes, and your level of sainthood never ceases to amaze me. Just by sheer participation in the youth skit alone has gold-certified you for heaven.

[Carolyn]

You are the UBER MOM. I am super impressed with all you did. I don't think I could have accomplished half that. I would have crashed after about two days. And I LOVE your shoes. They are awesome. Plus Shae and I say WAY TO GO AARON. That is really impressive.