Survivor: The Week Without Dad - Day 3

Day 3 – Monday

My day started at 4 am today. Yes, you read that right. 4 am.

Nathan was awoken by yet another rain storm moving through the area. He thought he had heard thunder, but I don’t recall hearing any. Nonetheless, there was that knock on my door at 4 am. I took him into our bathroom to go potty and he wanted to lay down with me on our bed. I allowed it for a few minutes, but quickly determined that I was not going to get back to sleep and would need to be up in a short while anyways. I didn’t want to wake him once I did get up, so I took him back to his bed and he went right back to sleep.

I, on the other hand, did not.

I finally went ahead and got up at 5 and started my routine. Sarah was up by 10 ‘till 7. But Nathan. Poor Nathan. He just couldn’t get going. “Mom, I just need more sleep,” he said at one point as I was putting his clothes on him finally at 7:20.

“I know, son. So do I.”

Okay, so I am just going to say, “Blah blah blah,” about the morning routine and suffice it to say, the kids got to school on time. Feeling a real sense of victory, I celebrated this fact by treating myself to a tall mocha and a blueberry muffin from Starbucks.

Oh Starbucks, I’ve missed you these last six months.

Since it was still, you guessed it, raining, I let the dogs stay inside when I left home this morning. I was leaving my office to go home to let the dogs out and you know what, it helps in the leaving of the office process when the car actually starts.

Mine, however, did not.

I got a ride home from my father in law to get Mike’s car so that I could have transportation to get the kids and get home later in the day. I find myself so thankful that I had left the dogs inside this morning when I was tempted to make them go out. Otherwise, I’d have had no reason to go out to my car or go home and wouldn’t have known that it wasn’t going to start until it was time to already be at the school to pick the kids up.

So I leave the office and start picking kids up from after-school care while it is still raining (this is 3 straight days of solid rain, which is unusual for us). I’ve picked up Nathan and we are getting out of the car to pick up Sarah and my phone rings. I could tell it was Mike so I answered and told him I’d talk to him later. And we picked up Sarah, we still needed to go to the grocery store to get everything to make my “not-so-way more homemade” creamy tortilla soup for dinner.

What was he thinking calling me between 5 & 6 pm on a Monday??? I work until 5 on Mondays and Thursday s and between 5 & 6 pm on those days, it’s a mad rush to get to each place to pick up the kids and get home at any kind of reasonable time.

What was he thinking? He wasn’t and after a couple of more times trying to call me, he admitted it once we actually got on Skype after we were home. It was Tuesday morning where he was and the thought of where we were in our day just didn’t occur to him.

But the kids and I got to talk to him via Skype/video phone and they really got a kick out of that.



Dinner and bedtime were pretty smooth. Another day down in the record books.