Day 45 - flying solo

Mehdi's working in San Francisco this week, which means I'm in the house with the kids, managing the daily routine, the crèche and school run as well as my day job. A text from me to Mehdi will go along the lines of:

What bins are due when???

A text from Mehdi to me will go along the lines of:

Just went to see Lenny Kravitz and Alicia Keys.

Bin collections in Dublin are privatised. Recycling is picked up one week. Waste the next. And there's a food/garden waste pick up too, but I've NO idea when.

Our black bin has been full since the day after our party (over a week and a half ago). So I've been really looking forward to getting that emptied from our front garden. But of course I managed to miss the collection. On Tuesday I noticed that all the neighbours had what looked like our recycle bin out, so I pushed ours out for emptying. But that evening I discovered that it was still sitting there half full. Mehdi has told me I should've had the black waste bin out.

So my stinking full up black bin must remain outside our front window until another 2 weeks have passed (the thought of which makes me feel bokey). And I've no idea where we will put the other waste that is sure to pile up in those 2 weeks. This was not something we had to consider in the apartment: we had huge communal bins that seemed to get emptied at least every day or every other day.

This week, the 2.5 year old has rechristened the 'new' house the 'brown' house. I'm not sure if he's referring to the external redbrick, or to the overuse of brown paint and furnishings throughout the interior.

The 6 year old loves to roam the house, coming up with ideas for where we can put an extra bathroom, or where we could knock a door into the garden, or where a slide could take kids from the attic room all the way down stairs.

The 2.5 year old makes pronouncements like:

"This house is dark and creepy."

and

"The kitchen is cold and dirty."

And me? Well, this week I'm just trying to hold it together until Mehdi comes back on Sunday and I can get more than 1 hour of sleep or a shower uninterrupted by someone who has found yet another spider...