Dad is away on a camping trip with two of his brothers. I have not been looking forward to him being gone since he contributes so much around here, tends to be the stricter disciplinarian, and is wonderful company. I have actually been amazed at how easy things have been since he took off. The kids seem to steer clear of mom. It is weird. It makes me wonder if they just know I am the grouchy one and all the demands they usually make are because they want to interact with dad. I tried to make a point of eating dinner together and they totally left me out of their lively conversation… and there are only two of them and they had already played outside together for 6 hours while I raked up leaves, mowed parts of the lawn and did some weed whacking. On a side note, we also enjoyed the fire pit. It is great to have a place to put all the junk that gets raked up. Dad usually does the bedtime routine and so it always seems to take longer when it is up to me. But all went well and I had a quiet evening after Ariana stomped off in a huff for being told she was supposed to be in bed 10 minutes ago. As I am now in the midst of a power struggle with the 5 year old I am not too confident about how the rest of the weekend will go. Well, I guess I need to go. I need to get that boy moving!

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