This weekend, my husband traveled south to the Ft. Lauderdale area to attend a memorial service for his Aunt. His father is unable to travel great distances, and asked him to stand in for him. My husband was more than willing to do this, even though he hadn't seen her in at least 10 years. He left Friday, and returned Sunday which meant I was on my own for the weekend.

In all honesty, it's not a big deal for me. The girls are old enough that they do not require supervision (me keeping them in my site) during all waking hours and have many friends to play with. And play they do!

What I find most irritating is that I am someone who likes some type of structure. I'm very flexible, and able to change where required, but I like to at least start off with a plan. Herein lies the problem.

I am not fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home-mom. This is perfectly acceptable to me. I came to terms with it long ago. If I were to be quite honest, and this will probably irritate several of you, I don't think I would be happy staying at home. I enjoy the stimulation of a challenging work environment. I would need to do something, even if it was being an active participant of some charity, or at the very least, work part-time. I like working. I would even go so far as to say, I love working. Do I still have days where I would prefer to stay home? Absolutely. Do I look forward to retirement (waaaaay down the road)? Most definitely. I always enjoy the time I spend with my family on holidays, and various days off. They come in short bursts, and I'm always happy to go back to work, yet kind of sad at the same time. That last sentence didn't make a lot of sense, but it's how I feel.

Sorry, got side tracked. Where was I?

Oh yes. Structure. Schedules. I'm more than capable of flying by the seat of my pants, but I try to keep those situations to a minimum. Short bursts of single parenthood allow you no time to get into any kind of a "groove." I am so used to having a partner who helps me out it throws everything out of whack. It's not impossible to take care of everything by yourself, but if you're not used to it, it can be a little nerve wracking. Take this weekend for instance. Shuttling the kids around to their various activities was quite taxing on mad scheduling skillz. The bathroom toilet clogged up. Twice. Once, dumping water all over the floor. I don't even want to talk about the leak coming from somewhere in the refrigerator. Kudos to all of you single parents who handle all of this on a daily basis.

It takes a day or so to get my feet back underneath me, and then what happens? My husband comes home and promptly messes it all up by being there. Which just means I have to adjust all over again. The poor man can't win (Hi honey!).

So now he is back. We are are a whole family again. The kids happily played Wii with their friends, and I made homemade pizza.

Oh, and got to go to work today, which means has both the kids to himself (plus two other kids). He definitely will have his work cut out for him.