Catching Up... Yet again

That time thing - it just keeps going, so without access to the Tardis, I just have to try to keep up.

Last Saturday Sweet Pea's school had an all-school picnic in the park. We walked over, partly beause we can - the school is only a 17 minute walk away, and the park is right behind the school - and partly because last Friday my brakes nearly failed completely when The Bug and I were on our way home from dropping Sweet Pea off at school. We walked to pick her up that day.

Saturday was a beautiful day for a walk and a picnic, and The Bug was beside herself with giggles when we showed her that she could ride the Bjorn on Daddy too! She's far more used to being strapped to the front of me.

BAD MOMMMY. BAD DADDY. In our usual style we were late getting out the door, so we went as fast as we could and I didn't remember until we got to the park that I had meant to bring our wide-brimmed sun hats. Sweet Pea fared just fine, porcelain skin and all, but The Bug's poor little face got completely fried sometime during the afternoon. By bedtime it was that awful, painful blue-red of a deep sunburn. Boy did Slipshod and I feel awful. Sigh.

Slipshod has been in Portugal this week - he is currently on a plane on his way home and we will see him tomorrow morning when we wake up. I may see him or at least talk to him when he gets home late late tonight (or early tomorrow morning), but the girls will have to wait until they wake up. I know he'll be loopy from the time change, but I hope he doesn't have any delusions of sleeping in, because both girls have missed him something fierce and will be all over him as soon as they wake up and see him. The picture above is a drawing Sweet Pea did at school on Wednesday, depicting Slipshod on the airplane, wearing earphones. ha ha! (Click on the picture to see more detail)

For most of the week The Bug seemed to be convinced that Slipshod was actually here somewhere and he was hiding from her. She repeatedly asked, "Where Dada?" and kept looking in his office, or in the bedroom when we were in the bathroom, or thinking that when she was sitting in her chair at the table in the dining room, surely Daddy was in the living room... but yesterday when she woke up she had had enough of the game. After waking up and saying, "Hi, Mama! Hiiiiiiiiii, Mommy!" to me for a while, she sat up with her back to me and said, "Want see Dada." Poor thing. Both girls have missed him so much. Yesterday we managed to be home when Slipshod called on the computer, so we got to talk to him before dinner. He was up packing in the middle of the night (1am) in Portugal. I hope he gets some nappage in on the planes today. Sweet Pea was so excited to talk to Slipshod that she kept opening her mouth at me in a big excited face, and shaking her arms to show how excited she was. It will be so nice to have Slipshod home!

The Bug had a really rough evening yesterday. Part of the problem was definitely that she was tired - she did a little more running around yesterday than she has done for a while - and part of it probably also had to do with teething - the second lower molar is partway through the gums and this morning at breakfast it was bleeding and she kept sticking her fingers in her mouth, crying - but I have to wonder if her grumpiness yesterday evening might also have had to do with Slipshod's absence. She definitely had a different attitude about the situation yesterday. She didn't ask more than once or twice where Dada was. And she is absolutely missing him.

Oh well - we just have to make it through today and then we'll get to see him in the morning. Yay!

As far as surviving around the house without Slipshod, we've done just fine this week. I was really good about actually cooking (when he's home I far too often ask him to pick up dinner on the way home), keeping up with the dishes and laundry - even the litter box. Of course we've got our usual clutter, but I did attack one or two little clutter spots, and keeping up with the laundry is a huge deal to me because we had a ton of extra sheets to wash last week. I never got my grocery list written last weekend and Slipshod had been going to do a shopping trip for us before we left since he usually does most of the grocery shopping, so I was a bit worried about attempting a big trip with both girls, but we did it on Monday and everything went really well. So I'm feeling pretty darn good. We had a good week despite Slipshod being out of town.

Okay, now I feel like I'm babbling, so I'll stop now. Last night I completely forgot to cut the veggies for tonight's dinner, so I'm going to do that now, as well as get Sweet Pea dressed for school and all that good stuff. Wish me luck! Eep!