Ruminations on a weekend without Katrina

I love to be with my kids. They are some of the kindest, funniest, smartest, awesomest people I know. And when Katrina is gone, I get them all to myself. She left after lunch yesterday to do some dry pack canning and work on a project with my mom.

I love my wife. She is a marvelous woman - great at being a woman, helping me be a man, and she's possibly the best mom I've ever met. And I never can seem to get much done when she's home. I think I realized why this weekend. It's because when I am home, she is more free to work on her digital life - the scrapbook, her budding interest in photography, blogging, etc. Which means that she is in the office most of the day. But I like her. And I gravitate to be near her. And there is nothing that I must do that is in that office, just someone I need to be with.

So the best way for me to get things done is to send her away. She asked if she could spend Friday night away, and I immediately was excited. After some more thought, I asked if she could spend Saturday night away as well. She said she could.

"Aha!" I thought to myself, "I can do some things that take longer than an hour without her knowing!"

So I made a plan - I'd set a reward in front of the kids with some clear requirements to get the reward, I'd help as much as was reasonable, and if they earned it, fine. If not, fine. Not my issue.

Requirement #1: clean the kitchen. Our kitchen is almost always usable. But things tend to collect here and there: school papers that haven't been returned, printed recipes that aren't in the book yet, crayons, napkins that haven't gotten back in the locked cabinet. That's not just us, right? So clean the kitchen meant that every single item that did not belong on the counter went where it belonged. Mopping the floor was not part of it. The counters would be cleared off and wiped clean.

Requirement #2: clean the garage. Enough that Katrina can park in it again. Which means, once again, sorting through a lot of things that have accumulated in her parking spot.

Requirement #3: complete phase 1 of a project she would enjoy when it was complete. This shall remain nameless for a little while. But I was confident she would love the result and that the kids and I would have a blast doing it.

As soon as Katrina left and the kids were all home from school, we had a pow-wow. I laid out the requirements. The reward would be a trip to the Portland Garage Sale at the Expo Center. I asked if they wanted me to push them. Nobody said yes. One kid said she wanted me to push some other kids. So that was it. We had a LOT of fun on the project. I'm confident the finished project will be fabulous. I just need another 10 hours here and there to complete it. We all had a lot of fun, and even the little guy stayed with it until the end.

Then it was time for cleaning. I was busy until 9:30 at night cleaning, making dinner (cheeseburgers and home made fries), and the kids worked until about 6. I thought somebody would konk out around 9, but at 10:45, all of them were still up and busy. So I send them to bed, played some football, did some laundry, and slept around 1.

By that point, the kitchen was done, and the garage had seen some major improvement. I figured the kids had an hour left in there, and it would be done. We all woke up around 8. I had breakfast, showered, and the kids, without a single word from me, got busy on the garage. 20 minutes after my shower was done, the garage was done. They got dressed, put something solid in their tummies (breakfast had been brownies I baked at midnight), and we took off about 11. The garage sale was pretty awesome. We're going back next year with a larger budget. The kids were patient, spent their $5 wisely, and even the little guy stayed right with me the whole time. No wiggling engaged in, no discipline needed. Awesome.

After lunch at our favorite locale hole-in-the-wall buffet, we've been hanging out. The kids made a stop-action Lego movie, and I'm about 10 minutes away from putting our attic stairs in. The hole in the ceiling is prepped, the measurements for how it will fold down are done. I just have to lift it up there and screw it in now. Then clean up, of course. The kids have 1 room to clean, and I have a couple loads of laundry to do to finish off the night.

And then, hopefully, I can finish another milestone or 2 before I collapse. Depends on that ladder, which is a must-do.