<\/p>\n

I remember when Avery was a baby and we’d take her to parties. That little munchkin wouldsleep the entire time! She was never the type of baby who required Jeremy and I to take her home in lieu of spending an entire evening with friends or family. That kid could just sleep, anywhere and everywhere. It worried me a little at first and then I started paying closer attention and noticed a pattern. Whenever things got especially noisy she would drift off. I had heard about this before.<\/p>\n

This was her defense mechanism. If she started getting the teensiest bit overwhelmed she would force herself to fall asleep and transform into a blissfully unaware tiny littlepile of peace.<\/p>\n

Don’t you wish adults could do that?<\/p>\n

“Oh, I’m sorry, Officer. I realize I was going 10 miles over the speed limit but I’m incredibly sleepy right now. I’ll catch ya in about 20.” Zzzzz.<\/p>\n

“How many times doI have to ask you to put your dirty clothes into the laundry room and not all over the floor? You know what? Just a minute…I have a nap to take.” Zzzzz.<\/p>\n

Now, I realize this wouldn’t be a terribly efficient way of handling our overwhelming lives but…God, wouldn’t it feel wonderful to know you could check out for a few minutes every time smoke was beginning to pour out of your ears in the style of Fred Flinstone? Man, I know I do.<\/p>\n

So, Mindy, you may ask. Are you feeling so…say…overwhelmed lately that you feel the need to blog about it and your apparent desire for more nap-taking opportunities?<\/p>\n

Why, yes, readers, I am. Thank you for asking! Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n

My husband is a hunter\/fisher\/videographer extraordinnaire. He and two other men are partners in, Pursue the Outdoors<\/a>, a web-driven community for all things outdoors. Really though, they are outdoor enthusiasts who have come up witha way to turn their hobbies into a business leaving their wives with no choice but to support their frequent need to leave home and hunt poor precious Bambis. (Jer assures me there are no Bambis being pursued but, still.)<\/p>\n

So, he has been gone all week long on one of these extremely important trips. Leaving me alone. All week. Just me and the kids. And school volunteering. And snotty noses. And poopy pants. And early morning nightmares. That’s just me…the kids have their own sets of issues.<\/p>\n

And, in case you haven’t been following my blog (which, by the way, what’s wrong with you?), I’m a bit of a chicken and HATE being alone in my house at night. You can read about all of that here<\/a>. And because I’m so sure that an axe-murderer or space alien is hovering outside my bedroom door all night long, I’m not getting much sleep. So, I’ve been a little bit overwhelmed this week and definitely not operating at full function.<\/p>\n

And, yes, I realize that people do the single parent thing all the time and I admire you for it, I truly do. In fact, and I am being 100% honest here, I cannot imagine more hardworking or dedicated people than single parents. But I am, admittedly, ill-equipped for single parentingand am ready for that man to get his camoflauged-behind home.<\/p>\n

And I still have 3 more days to go.<\/p>\n

Alone. With the kids.<\/p>\n

And I really want to take a nap, like a little baby, and forget for 30 blessed minutes that I have laundry to fold, dishes to wash, breakfast to pulltogether, lunch to prepare,dinner to make,fights to break-up, Candyland to play, teeth to brush, baths to administer, axe-murderer\/space aliens to conquer andlastly…my sanity to maintain.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Three more days.<\/p>\n

Love to all, Mindy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember when Avery was a baby and we’d take her to parties. That little munchkin wouldsleep the entire time! She was never the type of baby who required Jeremy and I to take her home in lieu of spending an entire evening with friends or family. That kid could just sleep, anywhere and everywhere. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,22],"tags":[163,164,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stuff","7":"category-family-life","8":"tag-baby","9":"tag-sleep","10":"tag-the-suburban-life-stress","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4545,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/4545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesuburbanlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}