Parenting

10 Lessons Learned When Mommy Leaves Town

by Zack
Updated: 
Originally Published: 

Through twelve years of marriage and three children, I’ve been home with my kids plenty while supporting my wife’s climb up the corporate ladder. I even ironed my pants once and trimmed my own back hair! It’s just there are some things she has always taken care of because, well, I suck at them. Those little things like mornings, evenings, cooking and… what’s that other little thing? Oh, right, our children. So, when mommy leaves town, daddy learns a great deal. A great deal, besides the fact that two and a half days for a clueless dad alone, feels like two months adrift at sea…

1. The wife’s side of the bed is softer, warmer, and smells nicer. Until it is filled with the frigid feet of her offspring whining about missing their Mommy.

2. Six cups of coffee = the energy, alertness, and volume a child wakes up with naturally.

3. Pop Tarts are a dad’s best friend; they cover at least two of the three meals of the day. But eventually your kids will tire of them at exactly the same time you commit to the “family-sized” box of 400.

4. The school lunch that in your head would take 5 minutes to make, in reality, takes 45. Sadly, it also does not get eaten. Often not even opened. The Pop Tart does.

5. Elementary school homework is as simplistically complex as IKEA instructions. Both make you feel dumber than a 5th grader.

6. Even in an ice storm, kids refuse to wear a jacket or any protective clothing other than a T-shirt. And likely the same dirty T-shirt they wore yesterday.

7. Reading a children’s book is harder to stay awake through than a PBS documentary while slamming shots of Nyquil.

8. Getting a tardy pass from the mean office lady is just as terrifying and shameful thirty years later.

9. A wife is the ultimate search engine. She knows where everything is, how it works, and can find it before I even know how to ask for it. Without her is to be without Google- I’m forced to expose the fraud I really am by asking stupid questions out loud. Wifepedia.

10. If every spouse left the other parent alone with kids for three days, the divorce rate would be reduced to just celebrities.

Mommy come home!

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