The other day, I let my husband read Kristen’s blog who authors, “We are that Family,” and now I am wondering if this was a good idea. Kristen is one of the bloggers coming to Kenya with us. Apparently Kristen blogged the other day about the way she is preparing her family for her departure.  Along with her long list of adorable things she is doing for her kids and husband, she is also making and freezing meals so they can have it easy while she is away.  My husband was so impressed by this he told my mother about Kristen.  Apparently, I have sheltered my husband from such women who do such things.  In fact here is our conversation after he read Kristen’s blog. It was deep.

Stephen –“ Did you see what Kristen is doing for her family?”

Patricia – “Yes, isn’t that sweet?”

Stephen – “Yes”   pause……. “I don’t know what that’s like”.

Patricia –  ”Ummm….me either.”

I admit I am not the meal planning kind of woman. My meal plan comes between 2 pm and 6 pm everyday and there are many nights my husband plans the meals.

I was feeling a little bad that I don’t prepare meals for my sweet husband, but I came up with an idea.  My husband has traveled for 15 years of our marriage so I am very familiar being at home.  So, for this trip I decided to leave my husband a survival guide.  I call it ……SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR STEVE….

SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR STEVE

RoboCop Steve

1)   In the event that your sweet daughters start to drive you crazy with excessive, hormonal emotions and talking, call Wingman and go to the spa shooting range and pretend like you are RoboCop.  It will make you feel better.

2)   In the event that you should start to miss you lovely wife, scatter a few coffee grinds around the coffee maker, and add some grinds to your coffee.  This will put a smile on your face.

3)   In the event that you should start to miss your lovely wife, buy her a nice gift, like earrings, or something for her camera, or a sassy outfit.  Shopping will make you feel better, trust me.

4)   In the event you feel creative in the kitchen, I encourage you to get those gross beautiful pheasants out of the freezer, clean and pluck those ugly lovely birds and see if the girls will eat them.   Feel free to do this while I am away.

5)   In event that the cat should get caught in the garage door, call the neighbor across the street.  He will take care of it….speaking from experience.

6)   In the event that you should accidently pull the side mirrors off the car, while backing out of the garage, especially if you do this more than once, know that I won’t get mad at you…. speaking from experience.

7)   In the event that something should break that you can’t fix and it’s causing you stress because your spouse has always fixed such things, call the next-door neighbor….speaking from experience.

8)   In the event that the girls should have an unexpected female monthly emergency, call you mother. Don’t ask questions.

9)   In the event that you are too tired to cook but want an excellent meal, call my mother.

10)  In the event that you should become tired and weary of driving your children around to all their events, and then coming home and working, then having the responsibility to cook dinner, and then the girls cry because they have so much homework, and you can’t understand their math problems because its over you head, and they are fighting excessively, and you want to pull your hair out….this is what you do.  You light candles and take a bubble bath, then after your soothing bath, you snuggle up to your girls and spend some time with them, maybe watching a movie painting nails, and eating popcorn and you take a deep breath and know that one day they will be all grown up, and your time with them is precious.

I leave you with this survival kit.

THE SURVIVAL KIT: In your survival kit you will find two highly capable Grandma’s who will always help you out, neighbors who will continually come to the rescue, and friends who will be there in a flash.  In addition, I believe you’re a super dad and I am so happy I am married to such a great man!

By the way, Kristen will be my roommate next week while I am in Kenya. Maybe I will pick up a couple of tips from her on meal preparation.  There is hope!