Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Wayne disappeared to the CAA conference for most of this week, and I learned to greatly appreciate the fact that I am not a single parent. And I thought last year was tough, when Wayne went to CAA and Paela and I spent the whole time puking ourselves silly! How do you people with even more than two kids handle flying solo?

I did have the sense to not try working while he was gone. I took a couple of "vacation" days, expecting that (a) Aderyn not taking a bottle for more than an ounce or so (if Wayne is lucky) meant that a babysitter for her would be a terrible idea, and (b) taking care of the two munchkins would make me too tired to care to look at a computer so working from home would be a bad idea too. We considered having me take the kids along to Chicago too, but decided to save the money for a trip in a couple of months instead.

Camilla and Cameron, thankfully, came to play early on and even brought some treats. That was a fun day. And they had remarkable timing as well, showing up just as Paela needed extra comfort waking up from her nap, and Aderyn needed a hand as well. Oh did I mention that Paela had another cold, so she woke cranky from not being able to breathe? Aderyn started coming down with it the last couple of nights as well. And would thus wake up earlier than normal too. I was, of course, still recovering from my month long cold, so whether it was the old one or a new one for myself, I don't know. But, hey, at least no one was puking this year!

But we managed well enough. We even went to the library and to Michael's the other days, though Paela whimpered about it being cold each time we attempted leaving the house. It was tiring, though. And Paela managed without the pacifier, even. She would occasionally ask for it at bedtime, but usually in passing memory and almost sheepishly. Like she knew she should normally ask. After a few times of this she began telling Pooh and Roo that she had traded her pacifier for them, so they know now too.

And so we survived. Wayne survived much better, of course. He spent his time running around Chicago in the bitter, windy cold. Same temperature as Boston, but windier, so much worse. He got to spend time catching up with colleagues, and the rest of the time was spent in interviews for various schools. We hope to hear news from some of them soon. Of course, it is the academic timetable we're taking about, so "soon" is not what one might expect.