So on Sunday night my darling husband hopped a plane to Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Trade Show and sell his company’s cool new stuff.

Aware that I was about to embark on five days alone with the children, I bid him farewell with some trepidation, but assumed I would have a decent week. A harder week maybe, a more tiring week perhaps, but a decent one. My concerns increased slightly with the hint of migraine that had been teasing me all week, but I am made of steel baby!!

I did not count on Murphy’s Law. The following is a list of the things that occurred during his absence, in addition to simply having two children and the pets all to myself all week.

Monday:

I awoke at 7 a.m. to the two sleeping faces in bed with me. I had allowed Monkey to sleep over with me as Lee was not there to hog all the bed real estate. I gently woke her up, and learned she had wet the bed. I stripped the sheets and tossed the in the wash.

While Devon was walking the dogs for me, an aggressive Golden Retriever (WTF?? It’s like the only aggressive Golden Retriever in the entire world) got out of it’s house and attacked my dear Bella. Devon and the owner of the AGR pulled the dogs apart and Devon brought her to me. I examined her and discovered a cut just below her eye. I washed it out, and Devon went to work.

Otter began to get very clingy, so I carried him around all morning. Come lunchtime, I was still carrying him while I attempted to make soup, one handed. I drove myself to the ER, with Oliver in tow, and ended up (four hours later) with four stitches, a huge bandage, and instructions not to use my left hand for the next three days. (Right.) My friend Susan picked Marlena up from school and cooked us dinner that night, bless her very golden heart.

I got home from Susan’s, cleaned up the soup and blood in the kitchen, tossed Marlena into bed, and then attempted to put my sheets on the bed with one hand.

Tuesday:

Having discovered that it is next to impossible to diaper and change a wiggly baby one handed, I put a load of jammies in the wash so I could avoid complicated snap arrangements and rely on footy jams and zippers.

I carry Otter downstairs and discover that Bella snuck down from the bedroom at some point during the night and peed and shat all over the floor by the back door. Yay.

I drove Monkey to school a little early so I could drop a Salvation Army donation off at a friend’s house before the truck got there, only to learn that Monkey was supposed to bring her favorite stuffy to school with her (I gathered this info from the few words she was able to choke out between sobs). I dropped the bags off (the driver was kinds enough to wait a minute for me to get there) and then raced back home, grabbed the bear, and then drove it to school. (I later learned that the activity had been moved to the next day, because so many children forgot their stuffies.)

I came home, cleaned the dog poo up one handed, mopped the floor, and then went to handle Sir Clingirificus Maximus.

I discovered that night that Devon likely had to be at the office until almost 9 p.m., so the dogs were going to be walked very late all week. I went to PetSmart and bought tethers. The dogs can at least be outside for a while. (I will not walk the dogs at this point because the one time I walked them with the baby they saw a cat, lunged at it, pulled me over the stroller, knocking it over in the process, and drug me several feet over our rock driveway.)

Wednesday:

I woke up to piles of cat vomit all over the house. Upstairs, downstairs, they were admirably non-discriminatory in the placement of their hairball disposal. All rooms were equally polluted.

My phone began saying it can only make emergency calls. It turns out that my SIM card was a little loose, and all I needed to do was remove it and put it back, but in order to learn that I had to call my husband at the trade show on a phone he can’t hear or feel to have him call t-mobile to see what was happening to my phone. Once again, I encouraged him to add me back on as a co-owner of the account.

The rest of the day was good, aside from Otter’s continuous clinginess and his repeated attempts to stun me with a solid knock from his head. Oh yeah, and the part where he grabbed my eyelid and yanked as hard as I have ever felt him yank, oh, and the part where he bit the hell out of my arm in the morning, right, and the part where he kicked me in the nose. (I had one of those moments when I realized if he was a good 30 years older all my friends would be telling me to value myself more, handing me cycle of violence brochures, and urging me to create a safety plan.)

Thursday (Today):

I had to take Otter for his well baby visit in the morning. I got lost on the way, and it took forever to get there. However, the visit was pleasant. He weighs 28 pounds and 5 and a half ounces, is 32 inches long, and has a huge head. Then I learned he was missing some vaccinations (I am not sure why, but he has them now) so I was told to wait while they figured out the best course of action.

While we were waiting, I was holding him in the hallway and he looked at me and said “Ma ma”. I melted, I twirled him, I kissed his pudgy cheeks, and then I held him down while the nurse gave him four shots. So much for positive reinforcement, let’s just see if he’ll say that again!

Then I took his little cranky and tired soul home, only to have him refuse a nap, slam me with his head a bunch, and then smear his first hard-boiled egg yolk all over himself and his tray. Just try cleaning egg yolk off a baby with only one hand.

Monkey arranged a playdate for the afternoon, so I took Otter to the doctor I had been referred to for my wound check. For some asinine reason, the doc they sent me to is over half an hour away, in good traffic. There are a million docs right in town, but no, they have to send me to the far reaches of Siberia to get my stitches examined. It took forever to get there, and forever to get back. Otter had developed a fever on the way there, and did not take kindly to being in yet another doctor’s office. It was an exhausting trip.

The good news, I have a band-aid over my stitches, instead of a hugely bulky bandage, and the cut is healing well.

Well, that was it. Except that it’s 9:30 and my roomie still hasn’t come home to walk the dogs, but they were tethered outside for a while to the back room floor should be safe.

I personally don’t think Lee should ever be allowed to leave town again.

When I was a child, I wanted to see the world. As a young woman, I wanted to save the world. As an adult, I simply wanted to survive in the world. As I got older, I lost my red cape amidst the muzzy muck of daily life. Now, as a mother, I am looking through the attic to find that little bit of superhero I used to be.

I am a busy woman, with a family to care for, a house to clean, and a business to run. I do not have much time to devote to securing a better future for my kids, and myself. As an environmental attorney, I get to do some good, but let’s face it, working from home with an infant means a severe reduction in the amount of cases I can handle. I simply don’t have many solid hours to research and work in my day. So I have been looking for more ways to help, and ways that don’t take too long, or cost too much.

Each morning I click on the Hunger Site, the Breast Cancer site, the Child Health site, the Literacy site, the Rainforest site, and the Animal rescue site. I also purchase as many of my gifts as I can from the Greater Good Stores, which are connected to these sites and donate additional resources when you purchase from them. However, the majority of their success comes from the few seconds of clicking people do every day, so you can make a big difference with no money spent and only a few seconds a day.
In 2007, the sites and stores provided:
53.6 million cups of food for the hungry
7,151 mammograms to women in need
Medical care to 657,619 children around the globe
328,072 books for children
Resources to save 10,155 acres of rainforest
and
42.7 million bowls of food to animal rescue.

I donate clothes my family is no longer using to the Salvation Army. The clothes are usually still in good condition, but no longer fit or are simply no longer being used. At least I know they are going somewhere good.

I test my language skills on FreeRice.com, and donate rice to the hungry. The site provides you with a word and four possible definitions. For each one you get correct, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the U.N. So far I have donated 6320 grains of rice. (My mother is in the tens of thousands. Go MOM!)

My roommate suggested I offset my carbon emissions from driving and flying with Carbonfund.org. Carbon offsets enable anyone to reduce their climate footprint by supporting projects that reduce carbon dioxide emissions to balance out one’s own carbon footprint. It is a new thing for me, but I think I can offset all my family’s carbon output for about $250.00 a year. It will feel good to be carbon neutral.

I am looking for more simple, easy, and effective ways to help the world. Hopefully, I will be able to teach my children to give back as well. Maybe if I find enough of these little ways to help, I can feel as though I have recaptured my inner superhero.

Does anyone else have any good ways to help?