What We Do When Mom's Away

This past weekend marked Rachel and my fifth wedding anniversary. Traditionally this is the wooden anniversary, so we marked it with tokens of our love that are made of wood. Rachel sent me on a scavenger hunt around the house, searching for clues and prizes having to do with wood. I found some baseball cards of one of my favorite players, Kerry Wood , some Woodbridge brand wine and an invitation to share some wood-oven-grilled pizza at one of our favorite local restaurants, Bistro Aix. In return, I gave Rachel a trip to the spa. OK, I know, that has nothing to do with wood. I actually gave Rachel a wooden picture frame and an appointment to get our family picture taken. However, Rachel had yet to redeem her Mother's Day gift, which was a trip to the spa. Therefore, by default, I can regift it and also include it in my anniversary gift to her, right?

When Rachel set out for the Ponte Vedra Day Spa and Inn early Saturday morning, she left me with a mild hangover from the wine, a stomach ache from eating too much at dinner the night before, and some cool baseball cards that Micah and Mal didn't think were very cool. The kids and I had about eight hours to kill until Mom got back home, so we sought out to find things to do together around the house. Here is an illustrated timeline of what we did together while we waited for Mom to come home:

We spent just over one hour eating. Micah, Mal and I spent one hour doing breakfast and lunch together. I also spent a few minutes wrestling with each child after Micah tried to eat a bug he found on the floor and Mal ate the real pine cone on the fake tree in the office.

I spent at least twenty solid minutes trying to shake Mal off my legs after she realized I was eating a piece of toast. I finally relented and gave her some of my toast, and then Tyson shunned me for the rest of the day for my preferential treatment of the kids.

Micah, Mal and I spent about 20 minutes playing cars in the hallway. During that 20 minutes, I said "Micah, Cars... Vroom Vroom" 37,000 times. Even I was groaning by the end.

We spent about two hours staring out the front window waiting for Mom to come home. The only reason you can't see me in this picture, nuzzled up waiting for Rach too, is because Tyson refused to take the picture. He was still mad at me because he didn't get toast.

Micah and Mal took some awesome naps too - probably because they knew if they woke up they'd have to be bored hanging out with me again. No picture is available of the naps, because I was also napping. All in all, the day was a great success. I got to spend some wonderful alone time with the twins, Rachel got pampered like she deserved to be, and Tyson eventually forgave me later in the day when I dropped some cereal on the floor. As for the sixth anniversary, I plan on trying to convincce Rachel that next year is the Aramis Ramirez anniversary, because I'd like some cool baseball cards of him too.