It’s official: I survived five days as a single parent.
I’d even say I thrived as the children and I played at my happy place (R.E.I.), threw rocks into the Platte River, indulged in Little Man Ice Cream, played at the playground, went on daily bike rides, rolled down the hill at Confluence Park, went to a St. Patrick’s Day Parade, saw Planet 51, attended church, made a cake in our Easy-Bake Oven, roller-bladed and picnicked in Washington Park, ate at Cafe Rio, frolicked at drop-in gymnastics and shopped. A lot.
Evidently, I have an aversion to being home when my husband is gone.
Oh wait. I’m always like that.
And where was the Lord of the Gourds? He was in Niagara at a giant pumpkin-growing convention.
Yes, you heard correctly. His people meet annually to discuss, welp growing giant pumpkins.
And evidently other exciting things such as “watching the youngest grower to ever receive an Orange Jacket take her place in history with her NEW WORLD RECORD Pumpkin.”
This is exciting stuff, people.
I encouraged Jamie to go. Mostly because I knew he’d have a blast and partly because I felt guilty about how much I’ve been traveling. We now have a 12-day break before we head back to Utah to visit family and ski Park City Mountain Resort for Spring Break.
That’s a lot of travel, even for a family travel writer.
This is the first time Jamie and I have had back-to-back trips without each other and it’s been tough. While we generally don’t keep score in our marriage, we kind of did this time around.
“Jamie, I think you owe me after leaving me alone for five days with the kids.”
“Are you kidding me? What about the 10 days you were gone for the Olympics?”"
“Your mom was here for eight of those days. On the others, I arranged play dates.”
“And your trip to Park City last week? You were gone for 3.5 days.”
“The kids were in school for part of it, I coordinated two play dates and your sister Lisa took the kids for most of Saturday.”
“That still leaves a lot of hours. You were gone a total of 13.5 days and I was only out of town for five.”
Bottom line is he is probably right but who’s counting?
Oh wait. Evidently, we are.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 