Empty house

Originally posted July 2, 2006

Tonights posting finds me childless.

Boo stayed in “The Grove” with Mimi and Papa (my parents) while Terry and I both have to work on Monday. The babysitter, Melissa, is taking Monday as a paid personal day and obviously she’s taking Tuesday off as a paid holiday. A lot of times I wish my current job would afford me so many paid holidays off but I won’t go there. She does an excellent job of taking care of Boo and I feel totally secure knowing that she is in good care while I’m working for The Man.

The weekend was a success. We arrived at Grammy and Papaws house (Terry’s parents) on Saturday shortly after 1:30 and by the 2pm had rolled around, my dear sweet child was skinny dipping in their pool. She has this thing for shedding her clothes if given half the chance and the thought scares the crap out of me. Will she be like this forever? Is this just a passing phase? Will I one day come flying out of the front door chasing after her in pink cowboy boots and nothing else?

We shot off some fireworks before and after Chris and his family got into town. The beauty of being in a small town is that the fireworks laws are fairly lax. No loud booms after 9pm. It doesn’t say anything about any loud screeches of flaming cardboard rocketing in the air towards the neighbors house, which we did plenty of. We also had a pluthera of loud pops thrown in for good measure. One can never be too cautious.

Fast forward a few hours and we made it thru Sunday morning breakfast with my mom. No f-bombs thank God. We spent all day at the park and several hours in the pool as well. Yours truly has a sunburn. Who knew brown kids could get sunburned????? Shortly thereafter we dropped the munchkin off at my moms and headed back to Ottawa.

The house is too quiet.

I miss her “MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!” and demanding every minute of my attention that she can get. I miss her crawling into my lap and snuggling in while we read books and hearing her say “Again!” after reading Goodnight Moon for the 3rd time. I miss our night time ritual where we whisper to each other about our day and more often than not me tickling her until she collapses in giggles. I miss saying good night to her and kissing her eyelids shut and the tip of her button nose.

Parenting is hard work. For those of you who are parents I know you all agree with me wholeheartedly. It is also so rewarding to get that unconditional love back in return, 10 fold. I feel guilty leaving her at Melissa’s. If there was a way I could stay at home with her I would.

But I can’t.

I’m going to try to enjoy the 2 days without her, for me. It may sound selfish but when she comes back to me on Tuesday, I want my soul to be refreshed. I, like everyone else, need ME time. A chance to read a magazine article from start to finish, work on her journal that I started when I found out I was pregnant with her, sit in total silence and not do a damn thing but breathe.

I know that I am lucky to have someone at home who can take her if she becomes too much of a handful. Someone who will allow me to walk away and close the door behind me so I can count to 10 instead of doing something I might regret. I admire the single parents out there who DON’T have that luxury I do. I honestly don’t know how you do it, but you do. You have to, ya know?

But when she comes home on Tuesday and I get home from work, I will see those beautiful brown eyes shining as she comes running to the door to greet me. She will smother me in kisses and I will hug her close and know that when we have to part ways for whatever reason, the homecoming will be so sweet.