When I'm Gone

I only go away from my family once a year. Any other time of the year that I happen to go anywhere, I take the girls with me.

So it’s rare for the girls and Tom to be home alone without me. But they’ve done it eight times now, and so they’re getting good at it. Or, you know, they’re resigned to the fact that it will happened once a year and so they deal.

The tradition that Tom and the girls have come up with is that when I’m not home, they all get to sleep downstairs in the living room. Tom brings O’s mattress down and A sleeps on the couch.

They are also allowed to eat pretty much anything they want anywhere they want all weekend long. According to Lyss, they were also allowed to watch as much television and play on the computer and their tablets with no limit. Which, okay, that’s awesome because it means they’re having too much fun to miss me.

Though Alyssa did vent a little last night when she muttered a bit about him getting on her about eating at the computer desk. “He never said a word about when you were gone.”

Maybe when I’m there, Tom feels like I’m already so soft that he has to be tougher to counteract my softness.

Who knows? I’m just glad they have fun and get along so well when I’m away.

For the record, there was plenty of soup when I left on Friday.