Exploration of solo parenting

So the Project Manager is away for four days, and the same thing always happens:

1) My patience goes way up.  Which is weird.
2) I get super-organized
3) I get super-productive

And I have a few possible explanations:

1) I am kinda competitive and I like showing off to my wife.

2) I know she's not there, so I lose some kind of hidden "meh, PM will do it" and I jump into getting everything done myself

3) I don't get distracted hanging out with my wife, which is one of my favourite things to do

4) There's enough room on the bed for me and the cats, so I get more rest.

5) The Peanuts don't have fights with their mom (which can be a major drain) and so everyone has more energy

6) I don't have to match my schedule to my wife's so there's less need to communicate and stress,

Life is good...

I'm on top of the wave, and it's going along ok.

Now... how to STAY on top of the wave is the question.

I wonder if there's something I can do, or keep doing, to stay up on here.

I wonder.

Not take on crazy crap?  Keep fully staffed at work?  Keep getting lots of sleep?

OH YES AND, I have realized that the Project Manager and I need to watch a show together, or our marriage suffers, so we're doing that again now too, we're watching Homeland. It's pretty good!

What's going on these days?

Golly, you know, my personal life is pretty darned stable, just doin' the same things as ever.

But hoooo boy, the world is falling to shit mostly.  Watching the rise of fascism in the States, and Canada and Germany left as the only bulwarks of liberal democracy.

It hasn't affected us directly at work yet, but there are likely to be some students here in the fall that were intending to go to school in the States who are now banned from the country, and the conference that were planned for there, may relocate to us here.

We shall see.

Life im general

Phew! Dinner plans for Peanut #1 have definitely resulted in an improvement in eating. And in a 1 million % reduction in shouting which is great.

In fact Peanut #1 hit an eating milestone yesterday so she got her reward, which was to go to the Pub and have popcorn. So we did that, just her and I, and we had the joint to ourselves, which was nice, and there may even have been a little daddy-daughter dance party, much to the amusement of the bartender.

In fact, yesterday was pretty much a perfect day.

New approach to dinner... god help us...

"This is your dinner. We will sit with you while we all eat. You don't have to eat. If you do, you get a reward. NO pressure"

Man do I hope this works.

Parenting Blogs

So Peanut #1 is very tantrummy these days, and it's super stressful and unhappy making.

So we check the blogs, and they all say it's normal, and that we're handling it properly, etc etc.

But mostly what I want them to do is tell us how to make it stop.

Stupid long term changes.

Anyway, we're gonna start a sticker chart style thing to see if we can get her to eat her dinner at least.

Complicated moments in life...

"... Give your staff this slightly unlawful order"

So I didn't.

And then someone gave my staff the order in writing.

So I'm protected and my staff are protected.