Trying Out Single Parenthood

Don't worry! John and I are still as happy together as ever. But last week Katie didn't see us together for four days and John and I each had a chance to play "single parent" for awhile. Of course, the three of us would rather be together all the time! But I had to share the many adventures of last week.

Time With Daddy

On Sunday, Sept. 7, we all went to Baltimore to celebrate John's brother Jamie's birthday. The next day John had a doctor's appointment there, and I had a meeting closer to home, so we decided to have Katie and Bella stay with John and his parents in Baltimore while I went home and spent my first night without Katie. Boy did I miss everyone! And then they decided to stay in B-more through Monday dinner, while I had plans that night, so I didn't even get to see Katie before she went to bed that night. Sniff, sniff...

However, there was an unexpected blessing: I'd been trying to wean Katie but wasn't quite done yet. However, Katie and I were separated for 36 hours, so the weaning took care of itself! It was SO much easier than I had anticipated! So I thank God (and John and his parents) for that!

Time With Mommy

By the time Katie woke up Tuesday morning (and BOY was I happy to see her after my period of KatieWithdrawal!), John had left for 3 days of work travel. We both missed him very much. However, we had lots of adventures while he was gone.

Tuesday morning Katie and I had our first week of Community Bible Study (CBS) for the year. This year I'm a co-core leader for a group of moms with young children, and I'm really enjoying getting to know a bunch of new friends. Afterwards I had a leadership lunch, and although Katie was super tired, she perked right up when the plates of spaghetti and french fries showed up. In a later post, I'll show you what she looks like eating spaghetti. She doesn't tend to eat much usually, but when it comes to spaghetti, she usually eats till it starts coming back up! Anyway, her spaghetti-eating entertained the whole table of leaders.

Tuesday evening we hosted my former roommate, Jaime, who was here from Arizona on business, along with another couple (aka the parents of 11-month-old Kai, Katie's betrothed). Leave it to me to only take photos of the babies instead of the adults. Kai and Katie had a great time playing, especially in the ball pool:

But the real adventure began after Kai and his parents left. Jaime and I took Katie and Bella for a late-night walk since Daddy wasn't in town to do Bella's last walk of the day. And when we got home, Katie was missing her glasses!! Oh no!!! So Jaime and I spent an hour or so of our quality time together scouring the neighborhood with mediocre flashlights, trying to find the glasses. No luck (at least that night). But thanks anyway, Jaime!

After dropping Jaime off, I went home and baked a birthday cake for my best friend Sara, since I was having her and some friends over the next morning for playgroup. At 12:15 am I took the cake out of the oven, left it out to cool, and collapsed exhausted into bed.

Wednesday morning I awoke early with Katie. We took Bella on another walk along the same path we'd lost the glasses, but even in the daylight we couldn't find them. Sigh.

When we came back, I took a look at my poor birthday cake. There were 200 ants crawling all over it!! ACK!! I shook them off and did some quick panicked thinking. Could I still serve the cake, and just not tell anyone about the ants? Tempting, but no. Maybe stick a candle in it and tell Sara it's the thought that counts, even if she can't eat the cake? But what kind of best friend would I be then? Finally I decided I had no choice but to bake her another cake. So I did, and Sara was so blessed. It was worth it if it blessed her.

Before Sara came over though, I took a shower. Since Katie was awake, she had to hang out in the bathroom with me (usually I shower when she's sleeping, but she'd woken up earlier than usual that day). When Katie started fussing outside the shower door, I cracked the door so she could peek in and talk to me. But she pushed the shower door all the way open and climbed in with me, pajamas and all. Although she HATES it when I try to give her a shower, apparently it's totally fun when it's done on her terms. She ran around inside the shower with me, and I even got to shave my legs because she was having so much fun. Of course, she was drenched!

We had a great time that day with Sara and our friends. As our time together came to a close, I printed off ten flyers and my friends Sara and Kim walked around the neighborhood with me to help look for the glasses and to post flyers everywhere:

After we had posted all but one of the flyers and we were two houses from the end of the route, Kim found the glasses!! HOORAY FOR KIM! Someone had picked the glasses up and put them on a branch, and since I had been focused on the ground (where Katie would have thrown them), I never would have seen them there. I am so thankful to God and to Kim. Even worse than being out $300 for the glasses would have been having to be without glasses for Katie for several weeks till we could get a replacement pair. After all the progress her eyes have made, I really don't want to take any steps backward if possible. So, thank You Lord!!

(Incidentally, Katie came across the stack of flyers in the recycling pile tonight -- usually she has no interest in that pile but tonight she started laughing hysterically as she flipped through the pages, squealing, "Whoozdat?!! Whoozdat?!!" with each new photo of her. Of course, she knows exactly who that is!)

Wednesday evening I got to go to a fancy dinner that my client invited me to. They had bought a table there, and I had a wonderful time with my coworkers, with my brother Stephen (who is interning there this fall) and his fiancee Lindsey, and with several old colleagues that I got to see there. And I'm super-thankful to my "baby" brother Daniel (age 23) who stepped out of his comfort zone to watch a toddler that night so I could go. Thank you, Daniel!

Thursday we had my friend Abbie over with her 5 1/2-month-old Meghan. Katie loves Meghan and it's so funny to see them love on each other and play with each other's toys.

While we were still playing with Abbie and Meghan, Daddy came home! And it was one happy family reunion!