My Wife Has Left Us.*

The bad news is my wife has left us*.

















* The good news is it is for only 3 weeks!

Although we have had our share of marital discord, fortunately, we are not at that state of permanent leaving. (At least I hope not!)

My wife took a gig teaching at a new business school in Barcelona Spain for 3 weeks.  The school is Harbour Space , a new European university, and she's teaching her expertise- digital marketing.  It was a great opportunity for her, and I encouraged her to do it.  (As she would encourage me to take a great gig, should it arrive.)

She flew out yesterday and arrived today.

They are so cool they don't have a logo, but a video backdrop!

This will be the longest that she's been apart from us (or me) in 8 years certainly, but maybe all 13 years of our history. ( I may have gone on tour for 3 weeks during one of those years, so maybe I was away longer.  )  It's still a long time to be away.

And it is a long time to be a single dad.

I think it will be either a very quick 3 weeks or a very long 3 weeks, and it all kind of depends on how stuff goes. I don't anticipate many problems, as I do most of the everyday care-giving now.

 But problems happen,  emergencies occur, and sh-t goes down. I am sure there will be some moments when my son will bug me beyond belief, and I'll be wishing for a couple of moments to myself.  Or when I will need her cool-headed advice about some thorny parenting problem.  Or when my son injures himself and cries out for his momma and she isn't there. Or when I haven't gotten all the things done I want to get done, who will I blame?   Or when I need her loving embrace around my throb---  this is a family blog! 

Oh my God, how will I ever survive!

* Please note the asterisk on the title.

I think it will be fine.  When I dropped her off at the airport, he was crying and crying.  But it only lasted about two minutes.  By the time we left the airport, we were over the crying which is exactly where we should have been.  Today, we facetimed from her sweet little apartment on the Barcelona Ramblas, and he was excited for about a minute, and then left to read his book.  I think the boy will be fine! And so will I.

Like anything, it's a step at a time.  We are planning extra play dates, extra time with local family members, some fun movie time, some fun theatre time, and some special dad time. And some time in just doing what we do- it will be an object lesson in how you can't have everything you want whenever you want it.  Because that's the fact of life.  It will work out.  We will survive.

If you've got some extra-special single dad tips, please post them in the comments.