hello summer, good bye Daddy

Last week Thomas was gone for 4 days at a conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was home Sunday and Monday and then left again on Tuesday for France, where he'll be through the end of July. Happily, Jamie and I will be joining him (and his parents and extended family) for a month starting in mid-June, but we've still got 26 days to go...

We are counting down.

We made the most of those last two days. Thomas and Jamie made sure I had a nice Mother's Day. They surprised me with a yummy breakfast, flowers, cards, and made me a very tasty cake. You can tell Jamie had a hand in the decorating.

Please note that it says "Happy Moter's Day." Still delicious.

 Jamie also enjoyed eating the cake.

Then on Monday night, Thomas and I went out to dinner and The Great Gatsby (I thought Leonardo DiCaprio did a great job and I was surprised at how closely most of the scenes and dialogue corresponded with the book, but I hated the psychiatrist framing device and thought the whole thing came off a little too much like Moulin Rouge). We had a wonderful night, though it was a little bittersweet knowing it was our last night together for so long. Finally, Jamie and Thomas went to the zoo together one last time on Tuesday morning before we drove him to the airport.

And now it's just the two of us. It's hard for me to figure out how to tackle this much time alone. Whenever Thomas has gone on shorter trips, I've tried to make every day he's gone special and fun so that both Jamie and I will have something to look forward to and something to help pass the time before he's back. We go out for ice cream or to the zoo or bake cookies. And we'll do our fair share of those kinds of things this time too, but we can't really sustain that for this whole trip. This isn't just a few days or a week, it's our whole summer. I feel like we have to settle in to a new normal and it may take a while to find our new equilibrium.

Two things making it extra hard: I can no longer count on Jamie to nap--and frankly, it's almost better when he doesn't, as a solid nap leads to his taking hours to fall asleep at night, but man does that make for a long day--and I have no one to kill stinkbugs for me. The latter is very seriously my number 1 concern about being alone so long.

Oh, and on an unrelated note: A few weeks back, we got family pictures taken by my very talented friend Brianna. It was our first time getting professional family pictures since Jamie's newborn shoot, so it was about time! I LOVE how they turned out! If you haven't seen them on facebook, you can check them out here.