Painting the Red Stick Red

So this past weekend, some of my closest girlfriends and I planned a girls' getaway. We didn't travel very far, but distance was not of particular importance on this getaway. It was peace.

I have been home for the past 3 months, with my girls, while Handy Daddy has been working out of town. He has been gone 4 days/3 nights, while I run the house solo. And it's been wearing me down. I've been doing a lot of screaming and wishing I could have a few belts before bed.

Handy Daddy found out last week that his out-of-town work was coming to a close, and he would be back home every night. And of course, the aforementioned girls' getaway was planned. It was like all was suddenly right with the world. Forget the oil spill crisis. Forget the state of the economy. Forget that our country is going to hell in a handbasket. (whatever that means). Mama is steppin' out!

I received the confirmation email from the hotel, and watched the goosebumps arise upon my arms. My friends and I swapped email about how we were gonna "tear up" the town and how we would be "ackin' da foo." Which really just amounted to us going to eat out and doing a little shopping. We were like little girls the night before the family trip to Disney. The excitement was at an all time high.

Then I woke up Friday morning to the Bug telling me she felt warm. By 10 a.m., she was running 102.6 fever. Great....

I didn't let it stop me. I called and made an appointment with the pediatrician, gave Handy Daddy instructions, kissed my lil' family goodbye, promised to miss them, and headed out the door. But it would've been so much easier to head out that door without my Bug being sick. Ugh!

So I worried a little, but mostly had fun. We went to lunch, did some shopping, acted "da foo" in the hotel room for a while, went out to dinner and got some gelato for dessert at Whole Foods. Then we all piled onto the fold-out sofa bed in the hotel room and flipped through the channels, all the while giggling because we were free. Free from laundry, bills, dishes, stoves, snotty noses. Oh, it was heavenly.

We headed back the next day, and I must say, I felt so refreshed! We weren't gone long, but I came home a different person. I can feel my sanity returning, and I am grateful for my little break.

Now, Handy Daddy's weekend went quite different. I will just give you the short version by giving you his report to me of the pediatrician visit. It went a little something like this:

• Very nervous father brings sick 4 year old and recently mobile 1 year old to pediatrician


• 4 year old has never been to this pediatrician, so he has to fill out a forms relative to her medical history, which he is fairly clueless about


• all the while, 1 year old screams to be removed from the infant carrier


• 4 year old sees doctor and doctor returns with script for antibiotics


• father asks, in front of the 4 year old, if she can just get a shot


• 4 year old cries and pleads with father to not get a shot. She says, "I got an idea. Maybe I can get a shot next time I come."


• father insists on the shot, and much more crying ensues


• father has to return 1 year old to the infant carrier, which elicits high-pitched screams to accompany the crying and pleading of the 4 year old


• father has to hold the 4 year old's flailing arms and swears "another appendage came out of nowhere and slapped the nurse"


• father is still filling out the medical history forms as he walks out of the office with the screaming children

Handy Daddy called to give me the report on the doctor visit, and realized that with all of the commotion and his frayed nerves, he didn't even know what the diagnosis was. We called back and found out that the Bug was suffering from tonsillitis.

Handy Daddy was very sweet to tell me that this 24-hour time period was very eye-opening for him, and he didn't realize all I have to do each day. He said he had no idea how I do it, because he didn't even have to cook dinner or bathe them. (I cooked a crock-pot meal for them before I left.)

Thank God for girlfriends.