While the cat's away...

You might have just assumed that Husband took over all child care responsibilities while I was living the high life in Paris. You might be right.

It's actually a funny thing.

A while back, I had to teach an intensive English class. Husband wasn't working that week (it was between Christmas and New Year's) and so he stayed with the boys all day while I worked. I didn't have time for lunch, so I was gone from 8 to 5:30. When I came home, the first thing Husband said, after saying hello, was, "I'm going upstairs to play on the computer." Ok. I went into the family room to see the boys. Husband came down an hour and a half later. We talked about our days. I asked him what he did with the boys. In the morning they went for a walk, they had lunch out at a fast food restaurant with slides and ball pits, in the afternoon they went to the park and picked up a dvd at the video store. Which they were watching when I came home.

Husband said, "I know I'm not with them all the time like you are but today wasn't stressful at all." He was referring to the harried look I have on my face when he comes home from work (at 7:45, by the way). I smiled. "I'm so glad you had a good day with them. Chéri, did you do anything else besides care for them? I mean like, you know, clean or cook or do laundry? " He answered without pausing (or thinking!), "No, you can't. It's impossible. They take up too much energy and time to get anything else done."

Which, of course, explains the harried look.

So when the plans for the weekend were being finalized, Husband told me to make sure his parents could come to Laval that weekend to stay. I just laughed.

To be fair, I left Friday afternoon and Husband wouldn't have been able to bring Boy1 back to school after lunch or pick him up at 4:30.

Anyway, when I came home on Sunday evening, there were leftovers (rabbit with mustard sauce and galette des rois) in my fridge, Husband was very relaxed, and my house was spotless. Which was a great ending to the weekend.