« Question; | Main | The Water Appreciation Campaign »
July 01, 2005
Home Alone
Today Mr PE went up to Edinburgh for the G8 protests, so I am single parenting for a week. I would have liked to go with him but it was all a bit up in the air and I didn’t know what it would be like for kids up there etc. So guess who stayed home?
Which reminds me I saw a postcard in Oxfam Books the other day, it said something like
I wanted to go out and change the world but I couldn’t find a babysitter.
Next time I’m in the town centre I might treat myself as a consolation prize.
I’m quite ambivalent about all this. At first I quietly felt rather excited about it. I kept thinking that it might be easier to sort out a bedtime routine for Littleone with it being just the two of us. I could get her in bed early and then I’ll have a whole evening to eat what I like when I like; read the entire bookshelf – twice; write the next essay on my course even though it’s not due in until the beginning of August; oh and there is the small matter of that novel I’m writing.
But it was a bit weird watching him disappear down the road this morning, knowing I’m not going to see him for a whole week. He’s not even going to be easily contactable as his phone will be turned off a lot of the time, so the battery can last out. Who am I going to share a (semi) intelligent conversation with? I mean I love my daughter but I do like to feel just a little more challenged than ‘Which teddy shall we take to bed tonight?’ I think this is where you lot may come in.
Also (and I know this is really dappy) but I don’t like going to bed knowing that no one else is in the house. I’ve got a thing about intruders. (This only started when I read In Cold Blood about 10 years ago. I’m not sure why this fear goes away when someone is with me. It’s not as if having the family around helped the Clutters at all) When I’m on my own I always make sure I have on my bedside table, the house phone, my mobile and a can of furniture polish (I read something about spraying hairspray into an intruder’s eyes, it gives you time to get away without doing much permanent damage. I don’t use the stuff so furniture polish is the nearest thing I’ve got) I also can’t help thinking what would occur in the admittedly highly unlikely event of something happening to me in my sleep. What if I didn’t wake up? Would Littleone know what to do? If not how long before anyone noticed something was up?
I bet all you permanently single parents are laughing at me right now!
Please tell me that you are all this paranoid.
Nope? Just me then.
Posted by purple elephant at July 1, 2005 06:37 PM