Observations and Empathizing

Earlier this month (Dec 5th - 8th), Amanda was in Ohio for 4 days to visit her family, especially her ailing grandmother. During this time, I was the sole caretaker of the kids and the house. A few observations and interesting experiences from those days are as follows:

• Lucas has been potty training for a little while now and very rarely has an "accident", but something changed when mommy left. He went from having almost zero accidents to between 3-4 per day. So I was changing and rinsing his pants frequently, in addition to washing a couple of loads of laundry. Toward the end though, I started realizing that you have to periodically encourage/make him go potty even if he tells you that he doesn't have to.
  
• I didn't get a single solid night's sleep due to Lucas' coughing fits, which occurred at least once and usually 2-3 times per night.
• I have a new understanding of why Amanda's patience with the kids is shorter at the end of the day. After repeating the same things to them over and over...
• I was able to accomplish multiple projects while Amanda was gone, mostly in the evening when the kids went to bed, but a little bit while watching them too.
• While Amanda is my favorite person in the world to spend time with, and I was elated to have her return home, I still really enjoyed and can be completely content with an abundance of time to myself. I did a little reading, worked on the computer and some home projects, and even took the kids to see the city's Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Since I have had Amanda to spend time with almost constantly for the last 7.5 years, that was a bit of a surprise to me.