Stay At Home Mom

On May 14th, Mac left for a 10 day fishing trip in Alaska with JD. That left me in the role of single parent and stay at home mom. This is not my typical role, something that must've worried Mac a bit so he left me an itinerary of the kids activities so I wouldn't screw up too badly.

Anxious to prove my super mom status and to support a local event, our Dad-less family headed to Riverfront park for the official re-opening of the Union Street Bridge. The free event was a great one for the kids. They got a passport and we travelled around the park to nine different areas collecting stamps (and treats).

It was a gorgeous day to be out walking in the park. And the kids were getting along so well.

Yeah, it is all hugs and smiles, all day every day...NOT!

The bridge, now with a new lead free finish!

Collecting stamps. Megan refused to ask the lady at the first stop by herself, but Liam was all over it. Then Megan complained that it wasn't fair that Liam got to go first.

Stop #4: The Tom McCall statue. Kind of looks more like Tom Sawyer.

The Acid Ball. The kids got Tootsie Rolls at this stop. Then the old lady says,"I have something for you, too, Mom." and then she hands me a free pen! Now that isn't fair. I thought about punching her in the nose and stealing the bag of Tootsie Rolls, but I figured that wouldn't be a very good example of the "No Hitting" rule in our household. So instead I told the kids they had to share. So many great lessons in just one little stop.

The Pavilion stop had cookies and lemonade, which even the adults could have so we hit this stop twice.

The whole loop was over a mile and a half, so the kids got a little tired of walking. We stopped at the park so they could run, jump and climb, in order to give them a rest.

The last stop on the passport was the Carousel and the completed passport earned us a free ride. For the first time ever, I rode a horse instead of standing next to Liam to make sure he didn't fall off.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. I was pretty sure most stay at home moms must be closet alcoholics, but I wasn't even tempted by the liquor cabinet once. In fact, the week was great fun and I really enjoyed having so much time to spend with the kids. I even got them to school on time! Of course, they were super excited to have their Daddy back and I was excited to get to use the bathroom by myself for the first time in ten days!