Recently we’ve been hitting our stride a bit. And I was feeling a bit confident. So I told Tom he should take a night away, and get a bit of rest. He had some vacation days he needed to use, and I was pretty sure I could survive getting the kids to and from daycare without him.
Sure it involved solo bedtime with all three, and getting them all off to school the next day, but it was feeling doable. So off Tom went.
As I started to collect kids from their schools, things were going well. Pick up went SMOOTH. That’s not something I could have said a month ago. Everyone put their backpacks on, and calmly walked to the car. We got home and ate dinner, got in PJs and even did a quick video call with Tom.
Dishes were done, the house was clean, and I even baked banana muffins earlier in the day for the kids. I was feeling super cocky. Look at this! I can parent my three children without crying in a corner! Up until this point I’ve been terrified of having Tom leave me alone with all three of them at once. I’m so grateful that we’re coming out of a super hard period and into more manageable and fun life.
Around 7:00 that night I had one kid sleeping, one in their crib making noise, and one getting ready to be put to bed. I was watching the monitors and checking on the two in their bed. And then.
The smoke detectors went off.
I started running for the stairs and called to E to follow me. I ran down the hall and burst into G’s room - he was still sleeping and woke up confused and then instantly terrified. I picked him up and started running towards F when the alarms suddenly went off.
Silence.
Silence including the baby. We were standing outsider her door, and everything was quiet. I slowly backed away with the other two, and went walking around the house checking everything. Nothing looked out of place and the alarms were off, so I brought them downstairs to cuddle on the couch for a bit.
I finally got them to bed about 20 minutes later. Poor G went to bed shaking and terrified at the alarms. Honestly I was pretty worried that they’d go off again too. I think they go off due to high humidity, since they’re hard wired (so it’s not the battery), and they’re new (so they’re not dusty or dirty), so I opened windows and turned on fans and basically worried all night.
But we were fine. They stayed quiet, and everyone slept.
The morning went pretty well too. I got everyone up and dressed and served breakfast. We went out and waited for the bus, and it went pretty smoothly except for the baby who was freaking out and wanting to run into the road. We cleaned up from breakfast and loaded the car, and got the other two to daycare. The littles seemed off, but I assumed it was the different schedule. Our kids are so good at routines that being off them is hard.
But then around 10am I saw a missed call from daycare. Womp womp. And just like that I had a kid home with a fever. The universe really just wanted to throw everything possible at me these two days. I’m not sure if the lesson is to appreciate that I’m not a single parent or that Tom should never leave the house again, but we did manage to survive.
A little more eventful than I would have liked, but definitely worth it to get one of us some rest!
