Never Again With The Seperate Vacations.

so my staycation started.  and oh did it start with a bang.  ore more accurately with a cough.  manchild had his first really bad cough.  and the sniffles.  and a fever that spiked out at 102.5.  and in the midst of this, hubby leaves on a plane for Florida for celebration (the star wars convention).  and i don't think either of us was really prepared for the whole separate vacations thing.  let me explain......

hubby and i work together.  we have the same friends for the most part.  our parents get along, and are usually invited to each others parties, get together, cookouts etc.  hubbs and i were friends before we started dating.  in fact we were already inseparable long before the official dating began.  he was there for me when i was going through a rather difficult divorce (which just added fuel to the ex's fire).  literally, since we started our official courtship, we have been apart exactly 3 days, and that was the 3 days right before we got married (seriously, he got into town and we were married 4 hours later), so there was a lot to keep me occupied and i didn't notice the "apartness" quite so much. 

and those have been the only 3 days we've spent apart.  we even worked the same shift at the same place right up until my pregnancy when it was VERY clear that working overnights was a baaaaaaad thing for me.  the only reason we work separate shifts now is so that we don't have to pay for daycare.  and that sucks so much that we've already got childcare figured out for when shift change comes in february, so we can be on the same shift again. see, we don't just love each other.  we LIKE each other too.  he is my best friend.  i can and do talk to him about everything.  even when it's him that's pissing me off.  so why separate vacations, do you ask?

hubby's mother died of breast cancer just before manchild was born.  i can honestly say i loved this woman second only to my own mother.  and if her death devastated me...  it destroyed him. 

and as he was lost in this sea of destruction, everything he held dear was tossed away as he looked to stay afloat.  he stopped buying comics.  quit going to comic conventions.  he sold off most of his star wars collection and all of his costumes.  (and if you don't think this is a big deal, let me put it this way.  we once had to rent a storage unit just for his star wars stuff.  no, not kidding.  and it was a big storage unit).  he stopped blogging, stopped pod casting, Fan Boy Empire was sent adrift.  the only things that kept him going was his family both real and extended. 

but when the haze lifted....  he realized that those very things he tossed away, were the things he should have held onto.  (hind site is 20/20 after all)  so when the prospect of going to CV came up, we bought his tickets, his passes, saved up spending money, all so that he could go.  and i'm not saying that we couldn't have scrimped a little more so that manchild and i could have gone too.  we could have.  (we should have)  but this way, there was a little extra for him for spending money.  and if you've never been to a celebration, trust me, extra spending money is a must.  this gave him a few more autographs, a couple more do-dads, and a bit more fun. 

and i stayed at home.  staycation.  we werent' expecting manchild to get sick.  weren't expecting that his first fever would be left for me to stress over.  didn't expect that the two nights in a row that he could only sleep for 45 minutes at a time would be left for me to take care of.  do i regret it?  no.  i now know i can handle these things, and will do so better (if only because hubby is back with me) in the future.  but there hasn't been one day that's gone by so far on this trip that one of us hasn't lamented that it was a mistake.  i needed him here to help with the baby.  he needed us there because, in his own words, he was lonely without us. 

for my own part, there are a couple things i didn't think about when i made him go.  things that i honestly didn't realize how lucky i was, how easy i had it: 
     1.  the cat poos.  she doesn't use the toilet, and doesn't clean up after herself.  i had no idea.
     2.  the garbage men expect me to put my refuse on the curb.  it didn't magically appear there. 
     3.  the kitchen is a mess.  as far as i was aware it just tided up after itself when i wasn't looking.
     4.  how do you run the vacuum?

thankfully he comes back monday.  come monday, it'll be alright.  come monday i'll be holding him tight.....