Seriously. I have no idea how single moms manage it. Or single dads. Single parents of any stripe.

Jill was only gone for 4 days, AND Noah was in day care for two of them. But I still was at the end of my rope by the time she got back.

Some of our time was a lot of fun: we went to the playground early on Saturday morning, leaving before it hit 90 degrees around 10 am. There was some quality snuggling and cuddle time, and some great story reading.

But there was also the meltdown in the dinosaur museum, the one in which I had to physically carry Noah from inside the museum to our car at the far end of the parking lot. And by then, it was over 90. It hit 97 by the end of the day.

(Aside: It was 97. During the first full weekend of June. This is going to be a hideous summer. I’ve hit the giant and awkward stage of pregnancy and I have 3 more months of this to look forward to, in the worst weather of the year. And yes, I do feel whiny about it, thanks for asking.)

And there were the two bedtimes in which Noah got up every 5-10 minutes for an hour, variously claiming to have poopy diapers, a need for all of the puzzle pieces to be out of his room, for more water, for me to put his blanket over him and tuck in his feet, and to tell me what his trains were doing.

Go.To.Sleep!!!

I can also honestly say that I think this was the first time since Noah’s birth that I was able to follow the “sleep while the baby sleeps” advice you get when you have a newborn. He’s only 28 months old, so I’m not doing that badly, right?

Jill got home to find the house covered with toys. I tried to implement a bin-based storage system while she was gone, not realizing that to Noah, a bin full of toys was nothing more than an invitation to flip the bin over and spread the toys across the floor. Within 2 minutes of his getting up from his nap, 3 of the 5 bins had been flipped, and so had my lid. There was also a mysterious and unpleasant smell in the fridge, and I had not put away any of the clean laundry in the basket.

I promise, you couldn’t get a more sharp contrast between that and her parents’ house.