What A Mom Can Do While Alone

So what did I do with 4 days alone while Jake and Daddy went to Grandma's house? I tried to do things I will not be able to do for another year or so when the new baby arrives. And at a pace that was my own.

So, while Jake and Mike were gone, I managed to:

-clean my entire office, purging two huge bags of papers, organizing all my current projects, and rearranging the furniture so the room is more spacious,

-oversee the construction (or deconstruction) of the wall between our den and kitchen, so that now we have a nice big window that lets in light, allows us to view kids from the kitchen, but is still high enough to provide safe closure for when we want the kids to play safely by themselves. This included measuring for the hole, removing all toys from the den and food and items from the kitchen that could get dusty, and then after they were done, touching up the kitchen walls and woodwork as well as those in the front hall and stairway with shiny white paint,

-do an errand for my friend Jacki who's sick and drop it off at her house

-attend bookclub at Jen's for A Thousand Splendid Suns

-go to my 23 week ultrasound where I got lovely 3d pix of Baby Girl, and then argued with my doctor an hour later about what gestational diabetes is and what to do about it:


Me: I seem to be gaining weight rather rapidly over the last month. Do you think my gestational diabetes has kicked in? Should I start measuring my blood sugar levels?



Him: Don't worry about the past, just watch what you eat going forward. Otherwise, you could end up with a baby that is prone to obesity. Just don't eat Ben and Jerry's except for once a week. And only eat a FEW Oreos before going to bed.



Me: But I rarely even eat sugar!! I haven't looked at an Oreo in over a year. (bursting into tears, deep breath.) You don't seem to understand, I've been trying to control this all along. But my body seems to not be able to process carbs correctly. That's my concern. Do you think I should put myself back on the strict gestational diabetes diet?




Him: (Blank stare. Silence. Pause.) Well, we could do another glucose tolerance test if you want to sit for an hour today.



Me: (thinking: jesus, he does not know a damn thing about gestational diebetes, does he?) yes, please!


so then I hung out for an hour afterwards doing my THIRD glucose tolerance test of this pregnancy, and put myself back on the strict diet, cooking myself gestational diabetes friendly meals for the rest of the weekend.

-have dinner out at a new place and shop at 3 new stores,

-put together (finally) the scrapbook of cards and pix from Jake's birth that have been sitting in my closet for 3 years (!),

-have a long bubblebath by candlelight,

-take naps every 3 hours or so, whenever the mood hit,

-rearrange the contents of our dining room cabinet to better organize bills and papers,

-watch about 15 hours of TV, including gobs of Oprah, Designed to Sell, Divine Design and a silly movie with Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton and Amanda Peet that was so forgettable, I already forgot the name!

-purge the house of clutter so that our housecleaner could do the best cleaning she's ever done, including shining the kitchen floor which she cannot do when three pairs of feet are tromping through it for lunch,

-ordered a new bedroom set from Grand we'd had our eyes on for some time,

-ordered a new bed for Jake

-used spot cleaner to remove all the stains from all carpets, upstairs and downstairs,

-went for two nice long walks,

-wrote in my journal, and

-wrote a poem.

Most of all though, what I got from my break was not a list of accomplishments, but a sense of space and air. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. No schedule, no commentary, no distractions.

It was, in a word, divine.