Missed You More
So I promised myself that I wasn't going to spend today hoping for tomorrow. For the most part I've done okay, I have concentrated on the now and what needs doing or what can be left. But with the Mauritian in South Africa for three weeks I didn’t do so well. I stared at the calendar every day and filled my days and nights with as much activity as I could think of. The Butterfly got so tired of going for walks in the mornings, helping mum with the housework or some other activity that eventually as we neared the end of the three weeks when I suggested we go play hopscotch I was told "No thanks I'm watching TV" In other words, "Go bug someone else!" I scrubbed walls, cleaned windows, even did all the ironing just to make the time go by quicker. I tried going to bed early, watching late night TV or reading till I fell asleep. Time still dragged its feet. My phone rang constantly with friends calling to see how I was doing, and as much as I appreciated the concern, the chance for a grown up conversation and their willingness to help me waste some time by chatting for at least half an hour I did get tired of repeating myself. I have watched so much television that I won’t miss it if it explodes, I won’t be baking for a while much to The Butterfly’s discussed I’m sure and it’ll certainly be a long while before I sit and painstakingly straighten my own hair.
I’m so happy the Mauritian is back home, three weeks without him was torturous. It never occurred to me just how much I would miss the little things, like waking up next to him in the mornings or tripping over his shoes in the dining room. I missed our falling asleep in the middle of a conversation at night then trying to remember what we were talking about the next morning. I never thought I’d miss his grumpy face when he came home after a particularly long busy day at work, but I did. Hell, I didn’t think I’d miss his smelly socks but I did. I missed his horrid continuous teasing I even missed cooking for him, okay I missed him cooking for me more but I did make a little too much food a few times. In short I missed the normality of our life immensely.
Once we had come to a decision that The Mauritian would go back to South Africa and for how long I began to plan how I would spend my three weeks without him. I had it all mapped out in my head, I knew what movies I was going to watch, that the Butterfly would get extra time on the computer and even an extra hour of television. I was going to start and finish a thousand paged novel, I was going to do minimal housekeeping and only cook every second night. I knew I would start really missing him by the last week so my plan was to fill the days then with a good old fashion spring clean, in the hopes I’d be so tired at night I’d pass out early thus helping the time pass. Well that was the plan and as I have said before, nothing ever goes to plan. We arrived back from the airport that Monday afternoon I lay down on the sofa and that was me, the Butterfly thought it was Christmas because she got to watch television till bed time and she didn’t even have to have a bath. The moment the Mauritian stepped onto the plane I began to miss him and by the time I got back home anyone would have thought that he had left for good. By the Tuesday afternoon I’d grown bored with doing nothing and was concerned my child would start looking like a television so I raised myself out of my stupor and decided the only way to ensure I don’t miss The Mauritian to a point of implosion was to fill every hour of the day with activity and busyness. So off went the television and the first thing the Butterfly and I did was to build a “worm chart” that we would sick up on the wall and count down every day how many more sleeps there were till Papa came home. We had so much fun! We got all of the Butterfly’s paints, felt pens, crayons and even some of the things I use for my greeting cards and loads of paper. We spread the paper over the dining room table and we scribbled, drew and painted the paper and each other amidst fits of giggles and skirmishes. Then while we waited for the paint to dry we headed off for a shower and managed between the two of us to wet the entire bathroom. We then or rather I then put the finishing touches to the chart by cutting out circles from our very colourful pages and writing in the available blank spaces a date and a number . The Butterfly then gleefully stuck each segment on the wall with far too much sticky tape and then took a lot of convincing not to take them all down again. We had had so much fun that afternoon and the time had passed rather nicely that I decided to do something like that with the Butterfly everyday or at least try.
We both started out very enthusiastically, the Butterfly happily followed me around the house in the mornings helping to make the beds, put a load of washing on, put dishes away or fetch the post. She would eagerly run ahead of me on our walks to the local Dairy for milk or the park, such as it is. The Butterfly would sit at her desk and write while I sat at my laptop and typed; we’d sit side by side on the sofa and read our books and ate every meal together at the dining room table. I spent more time than normal playing hopscotch and soccer then I ever have. I tried teaching her to skip and do head over heels and almost succeeded in getting it right.
But as the weeks dragged on the enthusiasm and eagerness got less and less and by the last week the Butterfly was more than happy to go off into her room or the garden and just be as far away from her crazed mother as she could be. Now how was I supposed to pass the time? With only myself to amuse it wasn't easy, so I would set myself tasks that I mistakenly thought would take effort and time to do, like cleaning windows, spring cleaning cupboards and the ironing. Every time I thought something would take me most of the day to do I was finished by lunch time, I was left with three days of absolutely nothing to do. So I started planning the Mauritian‘s homecoming and the Butterfly and I went shopping.
The Mauritian has been home almost two weeks now and I’m still as happy to have him home today as I was the day he arrived. I am so happy to be woken with a jolt by our screaming alarm clock. I am so happy to be staggering out of bed to make the Mauritian his coffee, breakfast and lunch. I am even so happy to fight with him to get up in the mornings. I am blessed with a husband who so willingly takes over entertaining his child the moment he walks through the front door in the afternoons, freeing me up to see to the evenings chores. I am blessed with a husband who will happily wash dishes, cook, put his daughter to bed and vacuumed the carpets when asked. I am blessed with a man who has long conversations with my belly button and happily goes to the shop late at night to satisfy a pregnant craving. I am blessed with a man who unashamedly will tell anyone who will listen how much he loves his family and how much he treasures being a father.
It really is so good to have him back home again!
I’m so happy the Mauritian is back home, three weeks without him was torturous. It never occurred to me just how much I would miss the little things, like waking up next to him in the mornings or tripping over his shoes in the dining room. I missed our falling asleep in the middle of a conversation at night then trying to remember what we were talking about the next morning. I never thought I’d miss his grumpy face when he came home after a particularly long busy day at work, but I did. Hell, I didn’t think I’d miss his smelly socks but I did. I missed his horrid continuous teasing I even missed cooking for him, okay I missed him cooking for me more but I did make a little too much food a few times. In short I missed the normality of our life immensely.
Once we had come to a decision that The Mauritian would go back to South Africa and for how long I began to plan how I would spend my three weeks without him. I had it all mapped out in my head, I knew what movies I was going to watch, that the Butterfly would get extra time on the computer and even an extra hour of television. I was going to start and finish a thousand paged novel, I was going to do minimal housekeeping and only cook every second night. I knew I would start really missing him by the last week so my plan was to fill the days then with a good old fashion spring clean, in the hopes I’d be so tired at night I’d pass out early thus helping the time pass. Well that was the plan and as I have said before, nothing ever goes to plan. We arrived back from the airport that Monday afternoon I lay down on the sofa and that was me, the Butterfly thought it was Christmas because she got to watch television till bed time and she didn’t even have to have a bath. The moment the Mauritian stepped onto the plane I began to miss him and by the time I got back home anyone would have thought that he had left for good. By the Tuesday afternoon I’d grown bored with doing nothing and was concerned my child would start looking like a television so I raised myself out of my stupor and decided the only way to ensure I don’t miss The Mauritian to a point of implosion was to fill every hour of the day with activity and busyness. So off went the television and the first thing the Butterfly and I did was to build a “worm chart” that we would sick up on the wall and count down every day how many more sleeps there were till Papa came home. We had so much fun! We got all of the Butterfly’s paints, felt pens, crayons and even some of the things I use for my greeting cards and loads of paper. We spread the paper over the dining room table and we scribbled, drew and painted the paper and each other amidst fits of giggles and skirmishes. Then while we waited for the paint to dry we headed off for a shower and managed between the two of us to wet the entire bathroom. We then or rather I then put the finishing touches to the chart by cutting out circles from our very colourful pages and writing in the available blank spaces a date and a number . The Butterfly then gleefully stuck each segment on the wall with far too much sticky tape and then took a lot of convincing not to take them all down again. We had had so much fun that afternoon and the time had passed rather nicely that I decided to do something like that with the Butterfly everyday or at least try.
We both started out very enthusiastically, the Butterfly happily followed me around the house in the mornings helping to make the beds, put a load of washing on, put dishes away or fetch the post. She would eagerly run ahead of me on our walks to the local Dairy for milk or the park, such as it is. The Butterfly would sit at her desk and write while I sat at my laptop and typed; we’d sit side by side on the sofa and read our books and ate every meal together at the dining room table. I spent more time than normal playing hopscotch and soccer then I ever have. I tried teaching her to skip and do head over heels and almost succeeded in getting it right.
But as the weeks dragged on the enthusiasm and eagerness got less and less and by the last week the Butterfly was more than happy to go off into her room or the garden and just be as far away from her crazed mother as she could be. Now how was I supposed to pass the time? With only myself to amuse it wasn't easy, so I would set myself tasks that I mistakenly thought would take effort and time to do, like cleaning windows, spring cleaning cupboards and the ironing. Every time I thought something would take me most of the day to do I was finished by lunch time, I was left with three days of absolutely nothing to do. So I started planning the Mauritian‘s homecoming and the Butterfly and I went shopping.
The Mauritian has been home almost two weeks now and I’m still as happy to have him home today as I was the day he arrived. I am so happy to be woken with a jolt by our screaming alarm clock. I am so happy to be staggering out of bed to make the Mauritian his coffee, breakfast and lunch. I am even so happy to fight with him to get up in the mornings. I am blessed with a husband who so willingly takes over entertaining his child the moment he walks through the front door in the afternoons, freeing me up to see to the evenings chores. I am blessed with a husband who will happily wash dishes, cook, put his daughter to bed and vacuumed the carpets when asked. I am blessed with a man who has long conversations with my belly button and happily goes to the shop late at night to satisfy a pregnant craving. I am blessed with a man who unashamedly will tell anyone who will listen how much he loves his family and how much he treasures being a father.
It really is so good to have him back home again!
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