Greg’s away this week.
This means several things.
1. Greg keeps sending me pictures like this:
Titled things like this:
“NICE!”
Because Greg feels like it’s important to remind me even from afar how much he appreciates a nice rack.
If you’re offended right now, I’d like to point out that you have excellent taste. If you’re accidentally giggling, though, you’re invited to play Settlers of Catan at my house anytime ’cause, God help me, I cannot ask someone for their wood without acting like I’m 14 years old. It’s not pretty; it’s just true.
2. There’s an unusual cold front moving in and our furnace died.
Greg is away, so OF COURSE THERE IS and OF COURSE IT DID.
When Greg went on a business trip in December 2003, leaving me for just a couple days with three kids age 5 and under, two of whom were toddlers we’d adopted mere months before with undiagnosed and complex special needs which rendered us incapable of any meaningful communication, we had an “ice event,” which trapped us in our house for 5 days, closed airports and left Greg stuck blissfully alone on the easy coast. (Psst…that was a typo. It was supposed to read “east coast,” but APPARENTLY I’M STILL SUBCONSCIOUSLY TRAUMATIZED over here.) Oh, sweet Jesus; it was horrible. There came a point after several days when Greg called home and said, “Well, I think I can fly into Seattle, but then I’d have to risk my life to drive Seattle to Portland on the ice to get home, so I’m not sure…” And I said, “RISK YOUR LIFE, MAN. IF EVER THERE WAS A TIME TO PUT YOUR LIFE ON THE LINE, THIS IS IT.”
The next business trip Greg went on was in December 2006. We had a giant wind storm. Our premature twins were 7 weeks old and still transitioning from hospital tube feeding to breast feeding. I farmed out the 3 big kids to only God knows where, and then I forced my mother to come stay with me. We slept on mattresses we shoe-horned in between the cribs in the twins’ room because it was the most shielded from the trees threatening to fall on the house. The electricity went out, so, in addition to having no heat, we had to find batteries for the breast pump by flashlight. We lost two trees and the remainder of our sanity during that storm but we lost NO PEOPLE so we considered it a win. We almost lost Greg when I took off his head coming back in the front door, but we patched him up later into a near semblance of his old self, which is all we parents get anyway, so we called it good enough and moved on.
3. My left eye has has not stopped twitching for three straight days.
4. Our kids miss their daddy. For very good reasons. Reasons like,
“I miss dad,” Abby said. “He’s better at helping me with homework than you are.”
And “I miss dad,” Ian said. “How come you never show us funny videos before bed?”
And “I miss dad,” Aden said. “He says better prayers.”
And “I miss dad,” Cael said. “You’re not science enough.”
And my personal favorite, “I miss dad,” Cai said. “He’s the quietest pooper I know.”
In conclusion, come home, Greg. We need your and your mad pooping skills, man.
Love,
Me
18 responses to “While Dad’s Away…”
You’ve given me several images of Greg that I never expected and now will never get out of my head… of course I knew the mostly quiet college version of Greg.
I have completely destroyed the quiet college version of Greg. Other than the quiet pooping, I guess.
“You’re not science enough.” Love this!
When we installed our flooring, we had a solid week of caulk jokes. My wife just about divorced me, as my friend and I were snickering over the increasing absurdity of our comments.
“Oh, so I bought a bulk pack of caulk. Cuz, you know, you can never have enough caulk. I got 4 for the price of 3.”
“Did you know they make coloured caulk? I picked up some grey caulk. I didn’t know caulk came in grey”.
“Shit, I just got caulk everywhere. I squeezed it too hard and it came shooting out. What a mess.”
And on. and on. and on. You’re in good company!! 🙂
Bahahaha!
Also, BAHAHAHAHA!
My husband leaves for a business trip to freaking CHINA on Sunday! Can you please come over and play Settlers of Catan with me? I’ll trade you an ore and a sheep!
One sure sign that you have a call to be a middle school teacher is that you snicker at the kind of jokes in private that you reprimand middle schoolers for making.
Congratulations: you and Greg may both have at least one qualification to teach middle school. (Don’t pursue it …!)
I have the opposite happening this weekend… leaving the hubby with the five kids (oldest being 6)to go to a family funeral. why go alone… hello, five kids, funeral, yeah. So what will he do? find places for most if not all of them to go so he won’t be so stressed. What did I do last year when he went to NY for ten days to do a work project for Hurricane victims? sucked it up and dealt with them on my own. why do they get the free passes? *whine*
BTW… hehehehe on the nice rack comment!! LOL
Oh, LOL, I shall think of you every time we play Catan now. So enjoyed this post.
My husband has to go away a few weeks after I give birth to number three under five years… I keep pretending it’s not going to happen so I don’t have to deal with the reality that something bad is going to happen then. It will be February, so I’m guessing freak snowstorm, combined with the water pipes bursting and our van getting sick. I suppose calling his employer and forbidding them to take him away from us is out of the picture?
PS. Definitely snickered at BOTH the rack and the wood references. You are not alone in the acting-like-we’re-14-years-old category… 😉
Giggling. Rack. Wood. Mad quiet pooping skills. Giggle!
My husband always gets a kick out of saying “have wood need sheep” during catan. Especially if we have a more serious group with us!
On another note, almost 5 years ago we celebrated our annivesary early by getting a puppy. 1 month after our anniversary, and 2 days before my husband was leaving to go away for work for a month, we found out I was “surprise” pregnant with our third child…and I was forbidden to tell anyone til he got back…I was working 30 hrs a week, had a puppy who was definitely not finished her training and a 2 and 4 year old! Thank goodness for family! Or I don’t know how I could have survived that month…oh ya, did I mention the morning sickness and pregnancy exhaustion??
There’s no way mine is going anywhere without us for a looooooooong time. We can’t even manage when he’s a little late coming home from work.
OMG…your blog never fails to make me giggle. Thank you. You rock sista!
My hubby went away for work a couple times one year. The worst was the time the snake died and the automatic timed lights and heaters kept turning on every day faithfully. Essentially the dead snake cooked for about 2 days and my husband came home to a house that smelled like dead snake casserole. I was about 2 months pregnant and about 2 hours from moving out when he finally came home.
I’m also solo this week. My little dude alternates between crying for dad (who’s more fun, lets him play snail bob before bed, and tells kick ass bedtime stories) and being okay with it. It was absolutely the outside of enough though when my husband’s 10 foot tall bike rack, complete with bike, fell on me as I walked through the door this afternoon. My orneriness is ameliorated by the fact that my husband is sick (barely has his voice left) and miserable on his trip. Hope you’re able to stay warm! (oh – my left eye is my twitchy eye, too.)
LOL, when is Settlers of Catan night! 🙂 Once when Jeff and I were at the zoo, we were going past some kind of deer with extremely large antlers. So I yelled out, wow! Look at that rack, I think it so happened that we were also passing a rather well endowed lady at the time too. So I always laugh at “rack” jokes!
On a side note, I am so, so, sorry that your heat is out, this is not the night for it. If you need a place to camp out, our house is warm and welcome 🙂
*giggles* rack