Week 220: Gone, Back, Here to Stay

I actually don’t have much to say about the kids this week, mostly because I didn’t really pay much attention to them. Not that I could have if I wanted, seeing as Geralyn and I were in San Francisco while the kids were not. I was in the city for the annual Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology conference (SIOP to the cool kids like you and me), and Geralyn decided that she’d take the opportunity to fly out to meet me there a day later, and that we’d both stay an extra day to do some of the first child-free vacationing we’ve had a shot at in four years or so. And, being the good parents we are, we left out extra bowls of food and water for the kids. Okay, I’m kidding. I think we left them with their grandparents or something.

This was, of course, great. When making small talk with people I only see at these conferences, they’d often ask “How are the kids?” to which my immediate response was always “Not here! HA HA HA HA! Is there any more wine?”

I was actually curious about how much I’d miss Sam and Mandy while gone for almost a week, and the answer of “some” might not surprise you. For one, I was really busy during the day every day, without much time to miss anything. Second, I consoled myself during our fancy San Francisco dinners by thinking “Man, Sam would hate this place. They don’t have grilled cheese on the menu. I really did her a solid by leaving her behind.” In the one case where we did eat at a place with grilled cheese on the menu I altered my plan a bit to work in the fact that it costs $18.00. The downtown part of San Francisco where we stayed was not particularly kid friendly.

The rest of the time, of course, I missed them terribly and am curious as to how they will react to our return. Hopefully they won’t be too angry and thus won’t take a cue from the cat and urinate on the carpet in protest.

Update: Just got home a few hours ago and after shrieking “MOMMY! YAY! DADDY! YAY!” upon seeing us, Sam’s first question was “Where’s my present?” Mandy babbled “Mama! Daddy!” over and over again, unless it looked like you were going to try to take her out of Geralyn’s arms, in which case she shrieked at you. It’s good to be back.