Ladies and Gentleman, Start Your Engines

Mr. Mint travels quite a bit for work.  I've often felt like I should start a support group for spouses of frequent travelers.  There is no other way to say it, it's just plain hard to be on your own with no relief.  I have a world of respect for single parents.   

We live on the west coast, and Mr. Mint works what I call east coast/west coast hours.  He is already out the door before any of us wake up in the morning and usually gets home after the kids have finished eating dinner and I am herding them upstairs for baths and bedtime.  

When the girls were babies his schedule was hard on me and our marriage.  I remember calling him in his hotel room in New York in the middle of the night, just so he could hear them both screaming.  I used to call him in the office starting about 4:30pm wondering when he'd be home.  The calls would get angrier as the evening progressed.   Things got a better as they got older, then got hard again after Gloppy was born.  

Mr. Mint leaves tonight for his first extended trip in quite a while.   He'll be gone for nine days.  Nowadays, when he is gone during the week, I seem to manage just fine.  We have our routines and things have gotten much easier as the kids get older.  What I really don't like is being alone on the weekends.  It's nice to have a couple of days of relief where it's not all mommy all the time.   This weekend, Mr. Mint had an invitation to the Daytona 500.   I couldn't say no, so consider it your Valentine present Mr. Mint.

So I've got my engine revved up and I'm ready to do some laps.  I had some blissful alone time this weekend so I'm feeling refreshed.   Frostine and Lolly have a Hula class on Saturday and we have some other fun things planned (hopefully with my sister and her family), some valentine cookie decorating with good friends.   A mom's night out and my book club next week will be my pit stop to re-fuel (I've already got the sitters lined up).  So I am sure there will be moments when I want to pull my hair out, or my kid's hair.  But I'll try to keep my sense of humor and besides, it's not all bad when Mr. Mint is out of town.  I get the whole bed to myself (with no snoring!!!!), I won't have to watch any UCLA basketball games and there will be one less person asking me what's for dinner.  

When Mr. Mint comes back, I'll be out of gas and ready for someone else to help with homework, brush teeth or break-up fights.