Staying at home with three kids by myself while my husband is traveling for work is quite a trip for me as well. Usually by the end of the week, I was exhausted, the house is a disaster and patience had left the building. But, over time, I've learned a few little tricks and developed a good attitude about his traveling.
Sticker Charts
Each girl gets a piece of paper with their name on it and we hang them up on the wall of the kitchen. At the end of the week when Daddy comes home, the kids are thrilled to show him all of the stickers they earned by quick obedience, being loving, doing chores, etc.
Quick meals
I’m totally not motivated to cook when my husband is gone. And my kids love it. Meals like breakfast for dinner, hot dogs, quesadillas, and grilled cheese are easy, (somewhat) nutritious, and don’t require lots of cooking or clean up. Paper plates are your friends.
Plan, plan, plan
The time between dinner and bedtime can drag like you would not believe. Planning will save your sanity. The first night he is gone, we go to the library to get new books and movies. We have Popcorn Pajama Parties, where the kids and I pile up on the couch in our pjs and watch a movie. We’ll snuggle up in my bed and read books all evening. Sometimes when I need to get out of the house we’ll head over to Barnes and Noble or Ikea.
Then have a backup plan
Pick up a movie or toy on sale and save it for when you really, really need it. If your kids love stickers, have a stash of stickers handy. My kids love to color, so I pick up new coloring books at the Dollar Store to pull out on a particularly long night.
Strength in numbers
Send out an SOS email – there is probably another mom who has a traveling husband too! Get together! One mom brings the nuggets, the other brings the french fries, the kids get entertained and you get some adult conversation!
The day of…
I try to make sure Husband does not come home to a disaster. I clean the house during the afternoon on the day he is coming home. My kids like to “help” me, by dusting or cleaning up their room. Then I get the kids bathed and dressed in their pajamas and get dinner made. That way, when he is home, we can all just relax.
It’s so tempting to make my husband feel guilty when he travels. He’s jetting around Europe, going to amazing restaurants, not to mention sleep in a hotel room with no kids waking him up all night. I’m stuck at home with the kids, eating fish sticks. Again. But he’s not on vacation. He’s super busy on these trips and usually comes home exhausted and jet lagged.
One of my favorite cookbooks is Barefoot Contessa at Home and this quote from the introduction really spoke to me: “Most weeks, Jeffrey has been around the world and back and when he walks in that door, I want him to feel that he's really home. What he doesn't realize is that what feels very casual is, in fact, quite deliberate: the music is playing, all the lights are on, there are flowers everywhere, and chicken and onions are roasting in the oven.” And I realized that is what I wanted for my husband. Do I want him to dread the chaos he is coming home to? Or do I want him to walk in the door wanting to be nowhere else in the world? And a few tricks to save my sanity and one afternoon of cleaning make that possible.
Last year we didn’t have Thanksgiving because our family went to India. I was really sad, at first. It was my first Thanksgiving without my family, away from home, with no turkey or, more tragically, Mom’s famous sausage stuffing.
