davidandmarta.blogspot.com: two-on-one

david visited his parents this weekend, leaving me in the rare position of solo parenting at the staple house. david and i are so fully enmeshed in parenting together that when he is gone, i am suprised at how...different it is. it is so different to be alone with the kids. it's harder, and there are more emotions about the absent parent, but there are moments of joy and ease and thrill, and this weekend, those moments were all mine.

the weekend started with the usual kids-sneaking-into-my bed, which happens sometimes when we're both there, but happens ALWAYS if only one parent is there. it makes for a very nice way to start a saturday morning.

ramona treated us to an extensive and rigorous dance routine that involved her brother. the video is hilarious, lengthy, and something that i am certain she'd prefer not to have on the internet. instead, here's a photo of the moment when james crawled through her legs as part of the dance.

we had much fun on saturday, and they even had a play date with neighbors while i snuck in a run. the next day, the time change dashed our plans for a sucessful arrival at church, so we got some donuts instead. our donuts were delicious pastries at a little place on the square,

then we hung around on the square and visited an art museum while we waited for the st. patrick's day parade to start. we were joined by many lovely friends,

and thouroughly enjoyed all the irish parading.

the kids particularly enjoyed the INSANE amount of candy they collected. later, i enjoyed distracting them with a video while i threw away about 75% of the candy, which i claimed to be both choking hazards and health hazards. it was not a lie.

then reality arrived, alongside the cold dark monday morning. i was still solo parenting. i had fresh snow to shovel. i had two kids to get ready for school, to feed, to hurry along, to bundle up. i had to get myself ready for work. i had to get the chickens fed, the cats fed. i really missed david all weekend, but i really really missed him on monday morning.

i had a wonderful little shoveling helper.