Three days without Greg (and an awards ceremony for Andrew)

Greg is away on a 3-day business trip right now, and the business of caring for the 4 children alone sort of makes my head spin. Any time that he has to go away for even just a few days, I get this sick feeling in my stomach that I won't be able to make it; that I'll somehow fail in the myriad of things that need to be done. I know, it sounds silly after the whole 15-month deployment thing, but still, these are the thoughts that come into my head.

To deal with the above foolishness (in my head), I'm making it a point this week to plan less of my own Stuff To Do, letting things fall to the wayside in deference of spending time with my children. Dinners plans involve things like fried-egg sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches large, thrown together "kitchen sink" style salads with toasted bread...we're basically eating lots of homemade bread along with other easy-to-fix additions to make dinner prep less time consuming for me.

So we're managing. Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe, but Greg'll be home tomorrow, and that will be very happy indeed.

Once the children are in bed, however, my time is my own. I've been watching the 5th season of Weeds (which I ordered from Amazon.com last week for this express purpose. Yay escapism!), and working on a Girl Friday cardi from the latest Knitty:


Progress on my Black Friday cardi

Last week there was a Kindergarten awards ceremony at the boy's school, and Andrew was awarded for Perfect Attendance, and Citizen of the Month for the month of December.



Walking in like little prisoners of war, with a "bubble" in their mouths, hands behind their backs (this is how they are instructed to walk in the hallways, and it cracks me up every time I see it)

The teachers getting ready to hand out the awards (Andrew's teacher is the blond, 2nd from the left):












He was very proud of himself.












Well, dinner -- and children -- are calling. It will be good to see Greg again tomorrow. Very good.