This is a picture of a man who loves his wife.  

It all started with a home school seminar that I wanted to go to with Emily.  I casually mentioned it to my husband who promptly volunteered to watch my 4 kids and her 4 kids while we went to the seminar in Emily’s town.   And he wasn’t just volunteering to watch them, but to keep them overnight.

Eight Kids…Overnight…All Alone!

Now, to us mom’s that sounds like a lot of work, some sacrifice and planning, but not impossible.  To a man this means no wife to cook and clean up afterwards, no woman to coordinate activities to keep them occupied, no time to watch the game on the telly,  and  no adult conversation for a more than 24 hours.     And maybe, just maybe, a little more understanding of his wife’s extreme need for chocolate therapy.

And what was the first thing that we did with our free time?  Why, hit the local goodwill of course.  We also ate a nice dinner at a restaurant without a playground, tried on clothes at Old Navy without kids climbing out from under the dressing room door or hollering things like, “Wow Mom, those are BIG UNDERWEAR!” and  sat in our pajamas at night watching Dancing With The Stars and playing card games. 

When I came home I figured the trade off to having a girls night out was going to be all the work that would be waiting for me.  I expected my house to be thrashed by happy children who ran from room to room strewing toys all over.  I also expected piles of dishes in the sink and mountains of dirty towels since Superman took them all swimming at the local pool.

I was greeted at the door with what I knew was the same look he sees when he arrives home from work; a thoroughly exhausted person that is ever so grateful to see another adult.     But here’s how he wins the Superman title.  All the kids had their stuff packed and waiting by the door, there wasn’t a toy out of place, the dishwasher and clothes washer were both running, and a humbled man was telling me how hard my job is. 

I couldn’t have been more satisfied!

You might want to wander on over in the next couple of days to his blog.  He’s assured me that as soon as he recovers he’s going to blog about his adventures.  And it should be mighty good reading.