Is it TOO much to ask . . .

When my wife goes away and I’m left at home with the kids, the "solo parenting thing" can go one of three ways:

1. kids are agreeable to my suggestions, and they listen when I explain things
2. kids are royal pains in the arse and argue with almost everything I say
3. kids are split…  one will take option 1 and one will take option 2

Now, as I write this, it’s 9:20pm EDT.  I am JUST now getting quiet time.  My 8 year old has been up 3 times since she went to bed.  The first time, she claimed that she forgot to use the bathroom.  The second time, she needed a cold, wet washcloth.  The third time, she said that she was scared of the dark and needed more light in her room.  I hope that she’ll stay in bed now.  My 5 year old did NOT want to go to bed, saying several times, "daddy I will go to bed when you do."  Um, no.  I managed to get her into bed, where she (probably) fell asleep right away.

Sometimes I just want to scream…   is it TOO much to ask that I be given more than an hour of ME time in a day??

Of course, the girls would not understand what I mean.  They would, most likely, be hurt by such statements.  After all, why doesn’t daddy want to see us after we were apart all day?  Why does he want to get rid of us by putting us to bed?  I can imagine several other thoughts that they would have, but I won’t bother typing them out.

Crap, I think I hear the 8 year old in my bedroom.  Sometimes, she sneaks out of her room and into mine to watch TV.  She *thinks* that I can’t hear her.  She hasn’t learned that daddy’s ears are quite good at hearing the quietest sounds (apparently all the years of loud rock concerts hasn’t done much damage).

Time to check the upstairs…  more later.