One down, four to go...

2:57pm Monday 4th August 2008

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Joe has gone on a jolly to Dubai. He left yesterday morning, and whilst it is nice not having to nag him about being too noisy/untidy/smelly, both Freya and I miss him.

Freya has been looking for him everywhere. I tried to explain to her that he has gone on a 5 day knees-up with all his uni mates with the excuse of a mates wedding, and that he would not be found under his pillow or in his sock draw. She gave me a very firm, slightly scary look, sighed and then said ‘Da. Da. Da’ with each ‘Da’ getting louder and shriller. Where ‘Da’ normally means anything and everything, I think that in this case she did actually mean ‘dad’.

Therefore in an attempt to keep Freya on side, I have been trying to keep her as active as possible so that she doesn’t have too long to contemplate Joe’s absence. If she were to decide that she is actually pretty annoyed about it, the next few days would be hell for me.

So, yesterday morning I cleaned the car, inside and out, whilst Freya joyfully bounced around on the seats and tried to drive the car away. She enjoyed it so much that I made a note to myself that playing in the car on the driveway will become a regular activity. Whilst cleaning, I found a half eaten chocolate digestive in the glove compartment, which I then flung over the hedge, only to be met with a ‘Mmm thank you very much’ from the farmer on the other side. I was very embarrassed and tried to pretend that I wasn’t there, and that it was Freya.

We had a painting session mid-morning, where despite the fact that when I asked Freya if she wanted to do some painting and she said a resounding ‘YES’, she refused to do any painting whatsoever. This was after me setting it all up, squeezing all the paints out onto plates, wrapping her up in tea-towels, laying down newspaper etc. I then tried to use all the paint up myself by doing my own handprints and painting about 13 different pictures. Meanwhile, Freya didn’t want to get her hands dirty at all and so she reorganised the unused paint brushes instead, and sighed a lot.

Early afternoon, we decorated her new playhouse in the garden. In doing so I happily discovered that Freya is just as happy with a framed photo of her beloved duck comforter (which I had hung on the wall of the playhouse) as she is with the real thing. This takes the pressure off me slightly as the real thing is on its last legs and I have been having sleepless nights about it recently. Once the house was decorated we then hosted a play-date in it for two of Freya’s friends in the afternoon. They all had a lovely time dismantling my arrangements and trashing it. I was then out there at 11pm last night with the hoover and an extension lead, knowing full well that I wouldn’t sleep easy knowing that there were crisp/biscuit/cake crumbs littering the carpeted floor.

Throughout the day we also managed to fit in a trip to the garage to see a man about a spark plug, we read 300 books, and baked some fairy cakes. By 6.00pm Freya was practically begging me to put her to bed and when I tried to sing her usual bedtime song, she shook her head crossly and forcefully said ‘Da. Da. Da’ which in this case I think meant ‘please put me in my cot now and go away’.

I don’t sleep very well when Joe’s not here. Last night I just lay there, worrying, and feeling petrified. All sorts of things were going through my mind… fires, burglars, murderers, mice in the playhouse, Freya waking up during a power-cut and me not being able to find her, me getting food poisoning and not being able to look after her etc etc. I finally fell asleep at 3am, whilst trying to plan back-to-back activities for Freya today, and having just received a text from Joe saying that he had arrived safely in Dubai.