Lessons Learned

One of the greatest things that came from my trip to Memphis last week was that Cornbread took on my job for three full days and now understands me just a little bit better.

I have to give him credit - not only did he put the trip together, but he wanted to put himself in my shoes for a time. He wanted to experience what I experience and be able to relate a little better. I love him for it. I respect him for it. I am thankful for it.

And I especially love the following:

* He finally understands why I adore Georgia and want to get rid of her all at one time. The first day I was gone, he came downstairs after leaving her unattended for a brief time (that is a BIG mistake). She was plucking the keys off of our computer. She got the enter & shift keys off before he came down and caught her. One look and she was off in another direction. He sat down to try to fix it, heard something and looked up to see her in the kitchen going after his coffee mug to pour it out on the table.

Classic Georgia. Naughty. Adorable. Destructive. Results in parent being angry. Defeated. Amazed at how cute she can be while you can't stand her.

* The next day he left her unattended again. (Hellooo? Does he not learn from his mistakes? I have to admit it took me a while to learn this lesson too.) He was working on putting our towel bar back up after Nora decided to hang on it like a monkey bar and ripped it off of the wall (a week previous to this). He came downstairs and found a trail of marker on the wall from one end of the room to the other, leading into the hallway and into the bathroom.

Again, classic Georgia. If you're not paying attention she will figure out how to burn down the house even though she can't light a match.

* Every night while I was gone Ryann vomitted at 1:30am. Because he didn't have help it was a 45 minute process to calm her down, clean her up (bath), and change her sheets. By the time he was done he was too wired to fall back to sleep.

I have to admit, I didn't feel any sympathy for him;)

* When I spoke to him on Thursday night (the first night) he told me that he had planned to do some work after the girls went to bed, but by the time he finally got finished putting them to bed he was so worn out that all he wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch tv.

HA! This is so my life!

* Before I left we dropped his car off at the mechanic - he had broken the handle off of his door. It was ready to be picked up when I got home. After Nora's puking in the car on the way home from the airport, we decided to get the car on Sunday. We called a friend to ask if he would drive one of us to the mechanic... Cornbread volunteered to go pick up the car and ended up chatting at our friend's house for 2 hours - because he needed a break.

Ahem, I never do this;)

* On Sunday we were walking up the steps and he grabbed a package of diapers that I had put on the steps to bring upstairs next time I went. He turned to me and told me that he now understands why I'm ALWAYS doing SOMEthing. It finally all makes sense. He said it always drove him crazy that I wouldn't just sit down and do nothing - now he understands that if you do things as you go (like grab the diapers on the way upstairs), its not as big of a mess and as long of a clean up period later in the day.

Thank you very much.

My trip was beneficial in so many ways!

BTW - today is his 32nd birthday. Happy Birthday Cornbread! Thank you again for the amazing trip!