Home bloggery::
The wife has been gone for a couple days now (comes home this evening) and it's been strange being the one on this side of the traveling spouse. Kinda nice, kinda not. I don't know if the boys are taking it easy on me because they think I can't handle anything more or if they're just as weirded out as I am by the new paradigm and it's knocked them off their game.
Either way, they've been the best behaved little boys I've had in a long time - they got themselves dressed and made their beds daily, helped me clean, watched movies I wanted to subject them to and generally were little angels.
Today they came home from grandma's house and proceeded to head upstairs to turn on some music - they've recently discovered Pandora and love it - and I continued sifting through the mail and the usual afternoon business while I waited for the inevitable yelling, pushing and arguing that usually takes place about 1 minute after they elect to do the same activity - which is all the time.
And it never happened. Eventually I sat down with a magazine and read for a bit, then returned a couple emails and worked on some art - nothing.
After about 40 minutes I went upstairs to find them both parked in a bean bag (the same bean bag) reading quietly and humming along with Joni Mitchell on Pandora radio. When I said hello they both smiled and then went back to their books. I told them to come downstairs any time they wanted to play. They said ok and continued reading. I had been dismissed.
I realized that it's a long, long time since I've had nothing but independent kids in the house - not having kids in the house isn't the same thing, then I alternately miss the kids and hurry to get things done before they come home demanding constant attention and refereeing. When they're here and there's nothing needed of me it's an entirely new and sort of unnerving kind of...relaxing.
I know that they're big kids and they haven't needed the more direct kind of supervision that keeps them from falling down stairs or sticking things in outlets in many years - and having twins means they've always had someone to play with...which is usually the root of the problem - but my Dad Brain is unable to reconcile the notions of "free time" and "time home in charge of the kids" as being the same thing very easily.
* Full disclosure:: I totally thought I'd blog about it and the quiet couldn't possibly last until I was finished but here we are. I can hear them giggling upstairs together and talking about their favorite pop music.
Happy dad time.
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