Survival at theThe Homestead.

I am realizing I may need to cover all this stuff in blog post installments.
We're all good with that, right?
So, here we go...

Installment #1: Survival at the Homestead.

Dear old Mikey was kind enough to cover for me for an entire week so I could go to Idaho and candy make my brains out. He is pretty much my favorite husband. Ya, I know, I only have the one--still, my favorite.

The plan was for me to leave on a Saturday and return the next Saturday. One whole week. I did take Grant with me, that still left him with four hoodlums to deal with.

The night before I left Mike called a meeting with the kids to "plan" out the week. I over heard it from the kitchen....it went something like this:
Okay guys, Mom is leaving in the morning and we all need to pitch in and do extra jobs besides your weekly chores in order to get through the week. Now there are jobs that only Mom does, so we are going to need to divide those up. I have a list here of the five things that just Mom does...

Hold the phone!!
Ex-squeeze me?
Just five?
Just the five things that I do...???
Hummm, it seems like I do more than five things.
Guess not.
That's what's so handy about being Mom, I just do the five things a day and I'm golden.
Sweet.
This comment cracked me up, I know he came up with just the 'five things'
that they needed to do daily in order to survive.
Five was the magic number because there were five of them left here at home.
....Any hoo....

....on goes the meeting of the minds and they divide up my 'five jobs' and plan out their week. I came home to a relatively clean house, children that were still alive, and a husband that didn't abandon ship in my absence.

They did awesome. Just a couple of things that need to be shared with the public at large:
1) The phone call from Mike on Monday night. "I'll be really glad when your back. (Me thinking: Uh...Honey, it's just Monday. You do realize I'm not coming back until Saturday, right?) I'm not used to thinking about the kids at all during the day. I didn't realize how much I really don't worry about them, I leave that all up to you I guess." I love him.
2) Mike telling me last night that he had decided before hand that the best way to get through the week was to pretend like it wasn't ever going to end. Pretend like he was a single dad forever. He has assured me, he does not want to ever be a single dad. And since I have told him that if he ever left me he would get the children, I think I have him right where I want him. Mwahhaahaahaa.
3)My discovery that the microwave did not fall under one of the 'five things Mom does' list. Well, there's six. We're up to six things Mom does.

Believe me when I tell you this picture in no way, shape, or form does justice to the disgusting mess that was, in fact, my microwave.
(Yes, Anne, your lasagna lived on in the micro...until my return)
When Grant saw it he said, "Look Mom! The microwave has the chicken pox!"
He even tried to show the kids the chicken pox microwave when they got home from school.
Fortunately, I had already discovered the cure.
He was marginally disappointed.