Withdrawal

The Dodson girls are experiencing withdrawal. We miss Andrew, Hawaii, and (well I miss) eating out. Let's break it down.

Andrew left early Monday for the entire week. And he's gone all of next week, and all of the week after that. Apparently his other family is starting to get mad at him for not visiting enough. So he's basically out of town all week between now and mid-May. Sweet. Meanwhile C/D discovered what I figured they would when they got Daddy 24/7 for a week--he's much cooler than Mommy. Other than bedtime they have been all Daddy all the time. D was so upset yesterday morning when he wasn't there to get her up that she wouldn't get out of the crib until we called Daddy on the cell phone to say good morning. And last night they insisted we do "eskimo kisses" over the phone w/ A because God help them they were getting their nightly eskimo kisses from the Big Hungry Daddy. They are back to boring old mom, and I don't blame them for being a little t'd off. (The funniest part is that when I ask them where Daddy is they say "He's bowling," probably because we went to a bowling outing w/ Andrew's office a few weeks ago).

We're all having Hawaii withdrawal. C/D both keep saying "Go back to Hawaii." No sh*t. Great call. If only!

Finally, we examined our finances, and we're tightening the belt. Ugh. Which, among other things, means a lot less eating out. And I don't mean nice meals. I mean that all of the last minute pizzas we ordered because we're too tired to deal are coming back to bite our bank account in the ass. Pretty easy thing to cut down on so it is one of our focus areas. But when you are home by yourself all week it can get really old eating in every night. I know, I know, cry me a river.

At least C/D are trying to help. Last night as I was making dinner I thought I heard the sound of water splashing in a pan that C was playing with in their kitchen. Figured I was imagining it. Nope. Somehow they had managed to rip open a box of pasta from "mama's kitchen", put it in one of their pots, go into the bathroom and fill up the pot w/ water, and bring it back to their stove to cook. If I hadn't been annoyed with how much water they'd spilled everywhere I would have been impressed with their ingenuity. Now if only I could really get them to make their own meals every night.

(And another cute story: yesterday we had "Elmo soup" as a treat. At one point C realized she'd eaten all of her "Elmo noodles." She was a little sad. D looked at her, looked down at her soup, threw her hands into her soup, dug out 3 "Elmos" and put them in C's bowl for her. I almost cried.)