When Daddy's Away

Dear John,

I don't like announcing to the world that your daddy isn't home.  It seems as imprudent as announcing that the house will be empty and ready for burglary.

But now that he's back, I can tell you how that went for us.  (I am letting him blog about his adventures in Las Vegas, going to the SEMA show with some friends.)

First of all, I got everyone to school on time.  I even made beds before we left in the morning.

I did not, however, check the weather.  That's how I wound up at school in 40 degree weather with a thin shirt, a knee-length skirt and sandals on Thursday morning.  Happily, Mrs. Z took pity on me, let me borrow a jacket and let me know about the forecast for the next day.

I did get to the grocery store to buy you diapers before you ran out.  I even remembered the size and brand.  It's not my fault that they make two different types of Pampers!

I got you and your sister fed each evening.  Nevermind that Mrs. Hazen was with us at Red Robin, that Sara the babysitter fixed your dinner Thursday, that Mrs. Robinson got you pizza Friday night or that my principal got us dinner Saturday as a thanks for helping with the science lab.  Nevermind all of that.  You were fed.

I cleaned out my car.  Only I waited until Saturday and it turns out that your daddy is right and cleaning it out daily is more efficient.

I made my coffee each morning as usual.  The coffee machine itself, though, seemed to have broken as its self-cleaning feature was off and I had to take care of yesterday's grounds each morning before making new coffee.  On a related note, the coffee cups did not march themselves in from the car, rinse themselves out, and present themselves ready on the counter for a new day's coffee.  Strange.

The main thing that came about with the absence of your daddy (other than all of us missing him terribly) was that I had the opportunity to take care of a little project.

You see, I have been telling your daddy for months that I want this nasty carpet gone from the playroom.  Ideally, I would like wood laminate in its place, but mostly, since I know the tile underneath it is just fine, if not what I really want, I just wanted the carpet to go away.  Your daddy either couldn't think of how to make that happen, or just didn't care enough about the project to put his time and effort into it.  And if I started something like this with him at home, he would have felt compelled to help and then resented having to help since he didn't want to do it in the first place, yada yada yada.

So I channeled the other women in your daddy's family... Gram, Nana Nolen, Aunt Rachel and Grandma Nolen and did just what I'm sure they would have done in that situation.  (I tend to think that Nana Roberts either would have decided she didn't care that much or she would have made certain that Papa Roberts knew exactly how important the job was to her.  And then he would have just done it, you know.)

I took the first opportunity your daddy was out of the house to take care of it myself.  I went to Wal-Mart and got a box cutter and a bunch of blades.  Read on the internet how to change the blades and then tried it out in a corner where I could hide the evidence if need be.

Not too bad.  From there, it seemed like being the mafia trying to hid a body... you cut it into small enough pieces and you can dispose of it anywhere.

I actually enjoyed the process a lot.  I hadn't been able to go work out while your daddy was gone and between the arm work and the fact that I wound up squatting to do a lot of the work once the tile was exposed because being on my knees on the tile hurt, I got a great arm and leg work out.

In the end, I was happy with the room, although I still want wood laminate.  Maybe the next time your daddy goes out of town...

 

Love,

Mom

P.S.  Your dad is reading over my shoulder and wants me to at least mention the casualty rate...

But really, three nicks and two carpet burns are small price to pay.  Apparently cutting away from the body and wearing work gloves are both important rules for this kind of work.