Survival Tips

In case your spouse happens to leave you alone with your three small children for twelve-and-one-half days so that he can go gallivanting around Denver - I happen to have come across some tips that may prove to be helpful for you:

Do's
1. Remember to call your local weather man to ask him if he would please avoid thunderstorms in the forecast while you are flying solo. Particularly thunderstorms around bedtime. It makes bedtime that much more of a struggle. So be sure to put in a request for clear skies.

2. Watch West Wing daily. Or some other TV series on DVD that you can watch after the kids go to bed. Anything that makes you feel like an adult...like a contributing member of society...like someone that has a life beyond wiping noses and bums. Something that makes you feel like you could be somebody.

3. Leave some lights on at night. The front porch, the back porch, and one light on every level. This is to scare away possible intruders. Or the Boogey Man. Just in case you are afraid of the dark. Which I'm not, but in case you are, it's a good idea.

4. Wear your kids out every day to the point of exhaustion.
This will help expedite bedtime, and should specifically include going on outings of many kinds - particularly during the 4 - 8 o'clock hours of the evening. Here are a few more pointers for outings:

• Do not be discouraged when, immediately after paying the non-refundable $15 parking fee, a child has an accident in her carseat. Do not turn around and go home just because you have no change of clothes for her. Just put her in one of the baby's diapers and she'll be fine. No one will notice the wet spot on her backside.

From the air traffic control tower

• Be careful to choose venues that do not have scary airplanes with shark faces painted on them; or that have rocket ship exhibits; or that have creepy astronaut suits randomly placed throughout. If you have little girls, they are going to freak out. Or at least mine did.

The only way I got them to even look at the big planes without being scared was by telling them that these are the kind of planes that Uncle Jonathan flies. They were sufficiently impressed.

• If in the event that your chosen venue does have frightening displays, make sure there are a few things to look at that will appeal to and distract the afore-mentioned terrified little girls - such as little airplanes that are "so tute and so fweet!" ( This is Natalie's rendition of 'so cute and so sweet.')

The girls, standing next to the 'tute, fweet' little airplane that was 'just their size.'

• And make sure there is a McDonald's, wherever you are going. You can't go wrong with a sundae.
  
  

Don't's
1. Don't have your wisdom teeth removed the week before your spouse leaves you. You want to be feeling your best. And no one functions at 100% when they're on Vicodin.

2. Don't go to church. Just don't do it. You may not have problems getting to church alone, and you may not have problems during Sacrament Meeting. But afterwards, you may lean over to clean up the war zone that is your pew, and sit up only to realize that your 17-month-old son is M.I.A. And it might take 15 minutes and half the ward, including one very responsible deacon, to find him. Not that this happened to me.

Okay, so maybe it did.

He just looks like he's plotting his next mischievous act. Little stinker.

To sum everything up:
Yes, it is possible to survive without your husband. You can have fun; you can function; you can enjoy your kids; you can have control of the TV remote in the evening.

But every time Anders goes out of town, it reiterates in my mind that there's a reason marriage is ordained of God; there's a reason why we are commanded to cleave to our spouse; there's a reason why Heavenly Father didn't design things so that we did all this alone. These last two weeks have been great - I think we managed pretty well while Anders has been gone. But we're not complete - I'm not complete. And we are all really excited to have Daddy come back this weekend.