The Prodigal Mommy Returns

Daddy Diary Day 4:
Every year my wife Jessica goes away on retreat with her friends.  Her particular mode of retreat is scrap-booking.  It’s a time for her to be away from the kids, sleep-in, see old friends, get a massage (yes they hire a professional masseuse to come and massage the girls), basically its 4 days of battery recharging.  We have a deal in our home-she goes away once a year to do this (that’s the deal).  Tonight the prodigal mommy returned home and just in time.

The kids woke me up at about 7:30.  They were up before the sun, but I sent them back to play in their room quietly.  Eventually, the baby gate at the door to the room “accidentally” fell and the Kraken was released (a.ka. Benjamin who is 1.5 yrs old).  Thank God for coffee, I needed it this morning.  I found myself saying a little prayer that I later wrote down and shared with Facebook.

Dear Lord, thank you. For in your wisdom you made the coffee bean and gave people knowledge to harvest it. That one day I would be able to have a drink in the morning that allows me be a little more amicable to those in my house. Amen

I meant every word of it.

The kids got pretty restless today.  And therefore they found themselves being sent outside to play a whole lot.  At Lunch is when the real excitement happened.  I cut Ben’s chicken and rice meal up an gave it to him.  The meat was cut way smaller then a whole eraser at the end of a pencil.  But despite my attempts to give him the absolute smallest bite sized portions he still managed to create a ball of meat and choke on it.  He only choked for a couple seconds, it was long enough for me to pull his chair out and begin to press on his abdomen, but he worked it loose on his own.  Let me tell you, it scared the hell our of me!

During that time about a million thoughts went through my head one of them being, “I can’t tell my wife that I let one of our children die.”

This incident reminds me that I need to get CPR/first aide certified.

We really didn’t do anything today, yet being with them an all their energy is tiring.  As soon as my wife got here, I disappeared for a shower and a nap before dinner.

These four days have reminded me how thankful I am for not being a single parent.

A Tangential Idea

I have a whole lot of respect, admiration, and sympathy for single parents.  So here’s an idea.  If you know a single parent.  Offer to take care of their children so they can go out.  Do it for free, do it because being a single parent is hard.

-jpserrano