Friday, June 23, 2006

single motherhood

I want to respond to one reader's astute question: "What in the world did you do while K was in Durban??!"

This is a very good question. Kimberly was in Durban (or en route) for ten days. The girls spent four of those days in Florida (or en route.) I think Kimberly was super jealous that I was going to get the house to myself for four days. And she had good reason to be. Those four days were wonderful. I visited friends, stayed out past 9, napped, re-read Bridget Jones' Edge of Reason (again laughing at loud at the Colin Firth interview), and ate cold cereal for dinner.

But those days did not come cheaply. I paid for them by having the girls by myself for six days, learning for myself how exhausting single motherhood can be.

Listing all the things we did during Kimberly's trip would be boring (think laundry, chores, and trips to the grocery store). But, some of the highlights include:
  • Introducing the girls to their new favorite movie, My Fair Lady. Subsequently singing "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" twenty-three times.
  • Packing--and upacking--for the trip (which included trips to Target, H&M, etc. to pick up needed items, including: sunglasses, beach towels, hairbands, shorts, etc.). Packing with these two takes an unbelievably long time.

  • Visiting mom (twice) and dad (once) in respective nursing homes. This was the first time I had met the girls' dad, actually, and it's a story worth telling, though not, unfortunately, one I can tell on the blog. Please call for details.
  • Playing "spring spa day" with face masks (thanks Dianna), hair treatments, nail polish (3 sessions, including one unfortunate bout with French Manicure press-on nails purchased at CVS with leftover money from Florida trip with said nails prompting mom to call five times this week to tell Paulette that she was not allowed to get her navel pierced).

  • Cleaning the house and the backyard, and firing up the grill for the inaugural barbecue of the season (hot dogs, corn on the cob, watermelon, plus great conversation with our fried Katie and entertainment by the girls, who choreographed a dance to Doris Day's "I adore being a girl".)

I'll post separately about our trip to buy Jen's new glasses (stay tuned, they are sooo cute!), and to catch people up on all the background posts ("carrots and sticks," "i heart medicaid," and "bedtime is complicated") I was supposed to write last week when I had the house to myself (and was busy pampering myself instead).

--lindsay


2 comments:

Jed said...

I am very happy to hear that the girls love My Fair Lady. I fell in love with the play just a few months ago.

The rain in Spain!!!

KamilahNYC said...

So funny Lindsay. Love the makeover section of the blog with the masks and hair being done. I definitely want to hear about you meeting the dad, so please email or call when you can!! Glad you survived single motherhood!