Being away from the kids

In the latter part of this week, I'll be away from home (and the kids) a lot more than I'm used to.

I'm working in the city on Thursday, necessitating the big kids to go to after-school care, which they are dead thrilled about, and C to have a longer than normal day at creche, which she is a bit meh about, but I'm sure she'll be OK. I'm really pleased to have picked up this work, to be honest - Thursday is the research day for what will follow on into a solid block of designing professional training programs, and I both like that and find it challenging.

Friday (day and probably evening) is DPCon. I'm looking forward to the conference itself - a lot - and to seeing friends again (and meeting some for the first time in person). I'm less hyped about the dinner, partly because I don't, on the whole, do well with evening functions (I am such a lark!), partly because I am a little concerned how G will manage with the three kids for such a long stretch, given that he's very tired at the moment thanks to C's night waking and overload at work. I'll play it by ear, I think.

Saturday, C and I are going to a 3rd birthday party for a friend of hers from playgroup whose family has moved 2 hours away. It's just C and I invited, so G and the big kids will hang at home. We'll be the whole day, I'd say. Then, in the evening, I'm out to a neighbours' for a Tupperware party. (How suburban can you get!)

Sunday, my parents are having the kids for the day so G and I can go out for brunch and to a matinee Comedy Festival show (it's a belated anniversary thing).

By Monday (the first weekday of the school holidays, and thus, by tradition, our pyjama day), I think I will be needing a concentrated dose of hanging with the kids. I'm planning nothing - we'll just let the day unfold as it does.

Yes, I struggle with my role sometimes. Yes, I complain about all three kids: their quirks, their needs, and their occasionally rotten behaviour. Yes, I get frustrated and fed up and tired with parenting. Yes, my life is imperfect and my parenting is too (and so are my children - and I!)

At the end of the day, though, I love to be with them, better than almost anything else in the world. I always realise it anew, after a few days away.