Flying Solo While Dad’s on the Road

My husband has to travel to Houston for work this weekend, which means I’m home alone with my kids from Friday morning until Sunday after bedtime. I’ve never done this before! I spent one 48-hour stretch alone with my older son, but all other times Corey has traveled, I’ve called in my mom or his mom for backup.

You see, my kids don’t sleep through the night. Far from it! Felix is up at least twice, and Miles gets up to go to the potty, etc. Then, they’re up for the day at 5am because they are dairy farmers. Which is all very tolerable when there are two grownups to help with the nighttime parenting and tackle the early mornings. We especially rely on one another on weekends to trade off 2-hour blocks of adult napping shifts.

So I’m more than a little nervous about how very tired I’ll be by the end of this business trip (and, thus, short on patience and the ability to think reasonable thoughts). In reaching out to my mama network, I learned that, of course, there are women who do this every day! All the time! I know mamas whose partners get deployed for a year at a time (or more!). I know single mamas with multiple children. I even know single mamas with multiple children and no vehicle. So asking for advice has been both a reminder that I’m very lucky to have such a devoted father and partner and also that my hard is still hard.

Here’s the action plan I’ve worked out to try to make the weekend as smooth as it can be.

• We’re doing takeout for dinner on Friday. Pizza delivery! My children are so stoked
• We’re eating a bunch of pre-made, easy stuff the other meals. I bought one of those roasted chickens at the grocery store and spent about a thousand dollars on strawberries and those little cheese discs all wrapped in red wax because that’s what my kids like to eat and there aren’t many dishes involved in eating that.
• We’ll tackle all of the dishes and all of the laundry before Corey leaves
• I set up play dates for my big kid Miles during Felix’s nap times so I can catch a nap when he does
• I arranged for additional playdates for both kids in the mornings so I can for certain nap while they’re both out of the house
• I hired a babysitter for Sunday afternoon so I can go do something fun all by myself

Hopefully when Corey returns with giant belt buckles for the boys, we’ll just be a little overtired and not utterly insane. This is definitely something I’ve stressed about since I found out it was happening!

 Have you ever gone solo while your partner traveled for work? Leave us a comment to share your best survival tips!