Spousal business trip sanity.

E is out of town at a conference this week so I’m single-momming it. I told him before he left that someone needs to make a conference for moms that doesn’t involved any panels or talks but just a lot of uninterrupted sleep, room service, and massages. That sounds heavenly.

When he’s gone, there are a few things I do to attempt to maintain my sanity:

1. Keep up with the routine. B seems to be getting more and more unsettled with each trip that E goes on as he’s actually at an age now where he can see that dada isn’t coming home. Our standard evening routine is supper, clean-up, then, at 6:30, E takes him to the bathroom for tubby time while I get the bedroom ready (unmaking the bed, laying out pajamas and his weekly book, turning on the heater if I need to, etc.), then mama gets some time to herself….usually this time is spent meal planning or shopping or, more recently, working on this blog, but I still like the quiet. When E is gone, I have to do all of this by myself which I think throws B off a little. I know it certainly throws me off.
2. Stick to easy meals.This one is probably a no-brainer. When I make my meal plans and E is going to be gone, I have two meals that are quick, easy, tasty, and make leftovers that always go in first. These paired with make-ahead meals and a very close Chipotle usually provide enough meals for me to last while he’s gone. Then, when he gets home, it’s a smorgasbord of eating out. 🙂 Spanish omelet is one of my to-go recipes for E-less days.
3. Get plenty of sleep. In the time pre-B, I used to stay up really, really, really late when E was gone because I had a hard time getting to sleep without him next to me. I remember when I discovered the Firefly series on Hulu during one of his business trips and I went to bed at 3+ am until I finished the series (which took about two days). The trend has tried to continue since B’s arrival, but whenever I attempt to stay up late now, I always pay for it in the middle of the night. It’s almost as if B knows E is gone and that I’m staying up too late as those are usually the nights when he wakes up at *insert ungodly hour here* AM and decides to sing and talk for two hours. One thing that has helped this trip is having the router automatically shut off at 10:15 pm. It’s sad that we had to go to that resort, but it has worked well and I’m not monster cranky mom the next day because I stayed up watching Downton Abbey until midnight. 😐 (That was the last trip.)
4. Make plans. Probably another no-brainer but if I know E’s going to be gone, I try and start making plans in advance because peoples’ schedules seem to fill up so fast these days. If I have one thing planned each day, even if it’s just a trip to the grocery store, the time does seem to go by faster and I think it’s good for both B and me to have interaction with people besides each other.
5. Don’t look at the clock. This applies to both night and day.

I’ll be using this list a lot over the next few weeks as he has quite a few trips coming up. Still, it has definitely gotten a lot easier since E’s first trip after B’s birth when he was only six weeks old!

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