I will be taking care of all three kids for three days in May. My wife has never been away from all of our children at the same time for this long. She went to Chicago over a long weekend with some friends a few months ago and took R(4yrs,boy) and T(13mth,boy). I took E(2yrs,girl) to my family's hunting camp and visited down there. Last October I was the best man at my friend's wedding and left my wife and kids at home that weekend (I wanted her to go and have my parents watch the kids but she refused [Actually this event was the source of a major fight that was the first time she fielded the possibility of leaving]). Apart from these events neither of us has been away from the children for any significant length of time.

I know she is worried about the kids being alone with me. She is not unfounded in this worry. There is a high likelihood that there will be mealtimes that I'm late in getting together by half an hour, or naptimes that might not be right on target. I might keep them up a while past bedtime if we are playing some game or reading books. I've never had them all to myself over several nights before. When I think about this it seems incredibly silly and childish to regard it as any kind of "event." I'm an adult father and it just shouldn't be this momentous.

I'd say she is a lot more worried about it than I am, both because I just don't worry all that easily and also because her pünktlichkeit/ordnungsliebe is a high bar. I think it'll be fine. In sort of pathetic display of lack of character, I am much more responsible when there is no one to pick up the slack. I hate this about myself but I'll probably be impelled to get everything done in a satisfactory manner because there is no other choice. When R was just a few months old I was still doing shift work and for a time my day off was Thursdays. R basically just lived in his swing all day, sleeping, and Laura was still teaching. I'd deep clean the house every Thursday before she got home from work. I typically lazed around playing with my son or burning time and then whipped myself up into a frenzy of vacuuming/mopping/dusting/picking-up only in the last hour or two before she got home. I always got it all done, and the pressure of wanting her to come home to a clean house was pretty reliable. I think to this day her impression is that I dutifully moved about the house doing responsible, productive things all day long. Effective shame in a certain way, once again.

Anyway, this is just an event coming up that is relevant to ADHD omissions. Submitted for the record.