What a week!

The week of which I speak is not last week but the week before--I'm just a little bit behind, here!

Tim "celebrated" Mother's Day by going off to a conference and leaving me alone with the kids for a week.  The timing was not his choice, of course, but I still gave him a hard time about it!  He gave up going to his usual professional conference this year because he didn't want to leave me on my own, but this one was a particularly good opportunity for him, and we decided it was time to give it a try.

The reviews...were mixed.

On Sunday after Tim left, both kids were positively angelic.  We had a really nice time outside, then Daniel occupied himself on the computer and let me read and play with Esther until bedtime, and afterwards I had some good one-on-one with Daniel.  It was great!  It was also the highlight of the whole week, which means: things went downhill from there!

On Monday, Daniel's school started standardized testing.  He is excused from the testing this year only, but all his teachers and classmates were involved, so he was put in with the special education class.  That worked well the rest of the week, but on Monday he hadn't known it was coming and I think he was a little upset by it, plus just stressed by being off his normal routine.  On Monday night I had a support group meeting.  Daniel has always had a hard time with going to the kids' group associated with this meeting; something about all the kids and the adult caretakers that he doesn't know well just doesn't work well for him.  So I had told him that he could try coming to the adult group the next time, but that was before I knew that Tim wasn't going to be there.  Daniel coming with just me would, I'm pretty confident, be a disaster.  So I made him go to the kids' group.  He was mad, and made sure I knew it.  And even Esther, uncharacteristically, cried when I left.  So, Monday afternoon and evening, not so good, although I was pleased that Monday evening ended with Daniel asking to call Tim, and pouring out to him the whole story of his day, in English.  Tuesday morning, also not so good.  Tuesday afternoon we slowly climbed back out of our hole, and we did fine again until Thursday.

I'm sure Daniel would prefer that I not share the details of Thursday.  But it ended with him being as rowdy and uncooperative as he knows how to be, and egging Esther on to do the same, right at bedtime!  And right at that moment, there was nothing I could do about it.  Daniel is just too big for me to pick up and hold in my lap until he calms down, like I can do with Esther.  And while I can talk either child down out of the trees when it's just me and him/her, this time neither one was listening to me.  Daniel finally realized that keeping Esther up was not in his own best interest and tried to help me get her to bed, but by that point she was so riled up that it was quite a job.  I was soooo happy when both kids were asleep and I could pour out my evening into Tim's sympathetic ear!

Friday afternoon Tim came home, and we were all very glad to see him.  The kids settled, and I felt better for having reinforcement in the house!

Saturday evening, Tim came down with a 24-hour stomach bug, and was pretty miserable.  But the kids were positively angelic again.  At one point Daniel had Esther in his lap, showing her how to play his favorite game on his computer, and at another point he actually invited her to play the Wii with him!  I thought, "You've got to be kidding me, you fight over me all week, and now that Dad's home you can suddenly play together??  That's not fair!"  But I was happy to be able to do what I needed to do and leave Tim to do what he needed to do at that point, which was sleep!

So that was my Mother's Week.  I am, as always, glad I get to be a mother...but also glad that I mostly don't have to do it on my own!