Dad in charge

I landed in Houston at 8.15 a.m. Sunday. If you do the math, you’ll realize this meant I had to get up at 4 a.m. in order to leave Lafayette by 4.45 a.m. in order to be at the airport by 6 to catch my 6.45 flight. And if you know anything about me, you know I’m not an early morning person — I managed just fine, even though I had stayed up until midnight — but it wasn’t easy.

Gary and the girls met me at the airport; he had a noon flight to Germany, so it was the easiest way to hand off the kids anyway. They gave me flowers and lots of Mothers Day cheeer. And we had plenty of time, so we went to breakfast — breakfast buffet on Mothers Day, perfect. And they gave me my gift: a pedometer. Now I can count my daily steps. What I learned is 10,000 steps a day is pretty easy when you’re chasing three kids and a dog (!) (Donald Rumsfeld on the Daily Show last week admitted one day he had only 1500 — egads! — I get 1,500 by 9 a.m.

The girls and I were home before noon … and I was greeted by a house where my husband was alone with the girls for three days. And boy, it looked like it. I’m sure they had fun over the weekend, but the house might have suffered a bit.

Sunday we just hung out; I took a nap, we watched A Little Princess, ate popcorn, Maddie made me strawberry shortcake for dinner. Nice day.

Then Monday I had to deal with what Gary left for me. I vacuumed, did laundry, folded all of last week’s laundry that had piled up in the laundry room. Tidied up, got Saturday’s mail.

He’s a good guy, spends lots of time with the girls. He’s a good husband and a great dad. He also can’t keep house. But it’s OK. They need me, and it’s clear they missed me.

Which I will try to remember the next time I clean the floors.