Sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning, my wife left me. I have vague recollections of her leaving the house with suitcases packed and some doors opening and closing. She did, however, promise to return in 7 days, so I’m not really worried about it.

She’s gone to Japan for the week to visit a friend. It’s one of those crazy things that she’ll never probably be able to do again, so she just went for it. Great for her, but very chaotic for me. Since I was unable to convince her that the kids would make great travel partners, I’m left at home with all the family. Today was our third morning to get up and get ready without Mommy around. Starr and I have a great routine in the mornings. She makes the lunches and gets breakfast ready for the kids. I get ready for work, and iron everyone’s clothes. I usually tackle getting the boys dressed, and she takes care of Lauryn. It’s a great system. Without her here, it has been thrown totally out of whack! I did make all the kids lunches for the entire week, and have them stored in the fridge (don’t worry it’s all pre-packaged lunch materials; ie. uncrustables, lunchables, etc… .) And I iron most everything the night before school, so it’s all ready. However, the biggest challenge has been combing the hair of my 2 year old daughter, Lauryn. It’s somewhere close to as challenging as brushing the hair of a wild, irritated, snotty and gassy grizzly bear. Lauryn knows I shouldn’t be doing this, and is very vocal in her protest. We might have to buy her a hat to wear the rest of the week. Something has to give!

Things are going well so far, but we’re all missing Mommy very much. It’ll be good for all of us, to see what life is like without her. I think…