Frances Friday: And They Say Friday the 13th is Bad Luck!

Did you know that I have an amazing girl?

You might have figured that out by now.

But just in case, more evidence:

I've started throwing out stuff I'm not planning to move into an apartment, and moving things around to make them a bit neater and showier for when we list the house. Part of this involved taking all of her pretend food out of the large diaper box we had stored it in (the pantry) and putting it in a small blue container that fits on the bookshelf. As any parent in the audience can verify, this immediately made the pretend food interesting again, and we spent Easter weekend playing with it.

We ate pretend hamburgers and hotdogs, squirted pretend ketchup and mustard on pretend buns, nibbled on pretend cheese, and the Mummy chicken nugget made very sure that the Baby chicken nugget got lots of sleep and cuddles.

Say again? Yes, it's true. Two pretend chicken drumsticks have become a little Mummy-and-Baby family, and the Mummy takes very good care of the baby. What a cute little baby chicken nugget it is, too, especially cuddled on Frances's shoulder while she pets it and says "shh" because--you know--it's cwying.

This anthropomorphizing of ... well, everything ... also made easter somewhat complicated. The egg hunts (plural) were marvelous. So much fun was the first egg hunt that we needed to have a few dozen more, you see, some where I hid the eggs, some where Daddy hid the eggs, and some where Frances hid the eggs. Soon I'm going to hide the eggs in the cupboard and hope that Frances forgets about them because I'm not sure I can tolerate another round of hunting for eggs.

But it was the chocolate bunnies that did us in.

The chocolate bunnies, the large one and the little ones, became a Mummy and her babies, you see. And the Mummy and Baby chocolate bunny rabbits had many hugs and kisses and snuggles, and talked to each other, and sang songs, and were carried around on Frances's shoulder or proferred in her hands (along with "Look at the baby bunny, Mummy! Awww. She's so cute!"). They could not, under any circumstances, be eaten.

Until Monday. Now they're fair game. It must be hunting season.

~~~~~

*clears throat*

Erik "needed a break" this week.

I am trying not to be too vicious or catty about it by, say, wondering publicly exactly what it is he needs a break from (oops), but he needs a break. And this needing of a break manifested itself as taking a week off to go see his parents in Montreal.

It's lovely to have the house to ourselves, from a purely selfish perspective. I have no end of fun with Frances when I'm not wasting my emotional resources being pissed off at Erik, which is another nice validation that I'm making the right decision. But oh Maude, the logistics. The logistics of being a single mom when all of our decisions had been based on Erik's convenience. Like, you know, having her daycare in Erik's office building, which is in the opposite direction from my office, and which adds over an hour to Frances's time in daycare each day, and almost two hours to my working day.

So Erik is getting a break, and I am running myself ragged, and Frances is spending extra time out of her home and family when I know she is already upset and confused and now she's missing her Daddy too. It's great. I really hope Erik is enjoying his break.

But!

But! When I picked her up Wednesday, and we stopped to get the mail, and there was a suspiciously dvd-shaped package waiting for us, and I gave it to Frances and she said, "Could it be Green Eggs and Ham? It's coming in the mail!" because she remembered me ordering it online a week ago, and how excited she was carrying that little package home, and then how happy she was to open it and see that it was! It was Green Eggs and Ham! She loves Green Eggs and Ham! Green Eggs and Ham is her favourite! That was great.

And it was great to put it on the basement dvd player while I jogged on the eliptical, thus getting in a workout and not feeling as if the entire day was spent facilitating Erik's "break."

And it was great to make her macaroni and cheese. Yummy! She loves macaroni and cheese! It's her favourite! And how nicely and quietly she sat on her kitchen chair waiting for the macaroni and cheese to be done, only asking for a preemptive snack a few dozen times.

Not so great was when Daddy called, and they talked for a few minutes, and she wasn't saying anything because she's still trying to get this phone thing, so Erik said, "Ok then. I guess I'll say goodnight. Goodnight, Frances!" And Frances sobbed. So then Daddy decided he didn't have to go yet after all, and Frances very carefully cradled the phone in both hands and stared intently at the receiver for about twenty minutes. She's never before been so upset when one of us goes out of town.

But after this, we snuggled on the big bed, and she asked to go under the blankets, all the way. And the baby chicken nugget snuggled with the baby mole, and then we read a story and I tucked her into bed, and went into the basement to try to get a few things done, and when I came upstairs--an hour later--I found my pink-stripey-pyjamaed girl lying on her back by the gate at the top of the stairs, hands folded on her stomach. "You see, Mummy," she said philosophically, "I'm just really not that tired."

So I tucked her into bed again, and she was asleep in five minutes.

And get this: I've gotten her ready in the morning, taken her to daycare, gone to the office, put in a full 8.33 hours, picked her up, brought us home, cooked supper, tidied up, cleaned dishes, organized and taken out the garbage, worked out, written, read, blogged and even slept--all by myself. I'm sure this is not what Erik had in mind, but I'm feeling a bit more competent today than I did last week, single-mothering wise.

Now, technically, today was supposed to be Frances's day at home with Daddy on his compressed day off; but this is difficult to arrange when he's in Montreal. I've been talking myself into being ok with this (I spend a fair bit of time talking myself into being ok with things). It's only one day, she likes her daycare, etc. But I'm not. Frances misses her Daddy, first of all; and not only is it hard for her to miss a day off at home, when I know she really wants one ("But Mummy, I don't want to go to daycare today. I want to stay at home! Don't you want to stay at home?"), but extra hard for her to have an extra-long daycare day in its place. Especially considering the circumstances, when all my instincts are telling me that she needs a bit of extra coddling and cuddling.

So, dammit, today is OUR day at home. Together. Plus my regular compressed day on Monday. And I'm not thrilled at having to use one of my precious vacation days to mitigate the potential damage of Erik's break, but I know if I'd gone into work I'd have spent the whole day wondering how she was and if I'd done the right thing. And I'll do a little bit of work from home to assuage the worker-bee guilt.

Frances and I are going to have a marvelous day if it kills me.

It's starting with Green Eggs and Ham.

Posted by Andrea at April 13, 2007 6:59 AM under Frances Friday

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