Husband Leaves on Business Trip

Kids become glued to my body.

At least as long as they have nothing to distract them.

Yesterday I took all four to meet up with another family at an indoor pool.
The two teens were fine hanging out with their friend but no so much with my two youngest.

Didn't matter that there was a huge waterslide, an incredibly cool water park/ climber thingy or two other kids their own age to play with that they know and like.

If I moved into the (really) hot tub, they moved into the really hot tub.
Same with the steam room.
Except that I told them they couldn't come in with me and to go play, so they sat directly outside the door shooting wounded looks at me through the condensation on the windows.

When they finally settled down enough to play together a whole twelve feet from me, the youngest Monkey, managed to bang her nose on the floor of the pool and came up flowing blood.

I scooped her up, set her out of the pool, pinched her nose and calmed her down.
The blood mixed with the water on her hands and arms and seemed like there was quite a lot of it.
There wasn't but she was starting to freak out.

A lifeguard led us off to the office we spent ten minutes in there with ice and papertowel and when it clotted up it was time to leave the pool.

Oddly enough, Buddy, the brother who could not leave my side for the rest of the time was quite content to play with the other kids while I was in the office.

Go figure.

Bunny, my oldest girl, wasn't aware of any of this happening and in the changeroom, reached over and gently tugged on Monkey's nose in an affectionate way and was freaked right out as I shrieked, "don't do that!" fearful the nose would start again.

Then I had to explain why and what happened.

Then I had to endure showering with two nutty kids who thought it was hilarious to carry on loudly about the abuse they were enduring in having to shower with me.

Loads of fun was had by them.
And that was kind of nice.
Although I did gather up my clothes and run away as soon as possible.

At 3 in the morning Bunny, 13, phoned me on the intercom from her room in the basement and asked if she could come up and sleep with me, because she was having dreams about me being dead.

Always something I want to hear about in the middle of the night.

She is sound asleep beside me and her little dog is snoozing on my feet.

I can hear my oldest son moving around downstairs, it sounds like there was more dog puddleage in the house and that he is mopping it up.

That kid is a treasure.

Did I tell you about how last week, while the husband was off on another shorter business trip, Sunny came up to me and said, you could use a break, I'm going to take the youngest kids to the playground for an hour, okay?

Sixteen?
Not such a bad age (knock on wood).

(The above post includes the actual psydoenyms that I am going to use for family members - I coudn't remember the last ones I picked, so these will work much better for me.)