While the Cat's Away the Mice will Play

Cat = Mark

Away = Three day business trip to Indianapolis

Mice = Me, Parker, and Ben

Play = pretending to be on our own vacation- no cooking, no cleaning, no budget

My game plan of going into three days of single parenthood was to pretend we were on vacation and stay out of the house as much as possible. It worked. Mark comes home tonight, and while I missed him, I didn't go crazy like I thought I might.

I pretty much let Parker direct the activities and gave him choices of what we could do. And Ben was along for the ride.

Hanging out with good ole' Chuck E. (Chuck E Cheese is the biggest waste of money ever if you ask me.)

Arizona Museum of Natural History. Parker loved it and has been there a few times before. But I'd actually never been. I want to go back without kids so that I can actually learn and read something. Parker just kept flying thru the place wanting to find the next dinosaur. It flustered me.

Ben's first splash pad experience. He was slow to warm up, but got into it. Parker was running around like a maniac. I couldn't get a picture.

On the way to the splash pad Ben was jibbering and jabbering in the back seat. And when I stopped at a red light Parker says to Ben, "Ben, do you see that red light? That means you have to stop. Now stop talking."

We went to Chick-fil-A one day and In-n-Out the next. Parker told me he wanted to go to In-n-Out by telling me he wanted to go the place that had "chocolate showmakes with green beach trees in them". I felt like a detective trying to figure that one out. But their cups have green palm trees on the outside. How does he know palm trees are on the beach? We have them around here and there's certainly no beach around. We sat outside at In-n-out and Parker decided to "water" the bushes while I was turned away cleaning up Ben. Luckily, everyone laughed and we didn't get asked to leave or cited!

We also went to the zoo, but we're there all the time. Didn't warrant a special picture.

Mark usually gets home from work at 4:00. The first day Mark was gone, at 4:00 on the dot Parker asked where Dad was. I reminded him where he was and how long he would be gone. And Parker said, "No. Dad has to come home and push the buttons that go beep, beep, beep, and then open the door." I guess I never realized that the beep beep beep of the buttons on our keyless entry are the cue for Dad being home. But now I'm just sitting here anxiously waiting for the beep beep beep.