When the cat's away...

Brian left tonight for Oxford for a week. When I told this to someone today at the park, she asked if he "must be really brainy" to be going to Oxford. I leave the answer to that to our collective imagination! Of course, no sooner had we dropped him off at the train station and come home did I see all his toiletries laid out on the bathroom counter, neatly waiting to be packed! So much for brainy! :)

I'm well on the way to my first mark of wildness when Brian is away: it is nearly 10pm and I haven't even begun to wind down for the evening. Usually we go to bed by about this time, but when he's away I don't seem to hit the sack until at least 11pm. I do pay for it, but I find that I enjoy the quiet and the space to just potter about by myself. I get so little of it anymore that every stolen slice of time is worth savouring. A week stretches out before me with hopes of a girls movie night, a BBQ with the youth (with sitters for the boys), time to finish my book, time to work, and time to watch old TV shows on the computer while I iron all the shirts Brian will need when he comes back! See, even when the cat's away the mouse doesn't forget about him. :)

My second mark of rebellion was not buying any salad at the store tonight while stocking up for the week. If I don't have to eat it, I'm not going to eat it!

In all seriousness, the week does hold some logistical nightmares, like Adam's hearing test under anaesthetic which is of course scheduled for Wednesday, and which I hope and pray is finished before the sitter has to leave! It should be no problem, but with these things you never know. I'll be praying for a smooth transition into hospital, a complication-free time with the anaesthetic, and for the doctors to truly get a sense of what is going on with Adam's hearing and vision (yep, it's a double-up of systems here!).

Also, I'm trying a little experiment this week and going gluten free with our food. I've thought about doing it for a long time, and have toyed around with it before, but never given it a serious go. There is so much debate about whether or not it works or helps, but I figure that even if it helps Adam a little bit, I owe it to him to try. You can read the best article I've ever read on the topic here. In it, a good friend of ours is the anonymous Philadelphia friend who talks at length about their search for the "right" diet for their daughter. I owe my new interest partly to he and his wife, and partly to the Horse Boy event last weekend. If I'm going to take Adam's Autism seriously, I have to also take seriously that even little steps I take might help or hurt him. I will post an update here in a week.

Finally, no scratch that. Adam is still up, and obviously still hungry so I'll leave it for now. But I do want to say that I've laughed more today than in a while, and I have the boys to thank for that. It's a good time with them, and I am looking forward to summer and all that it holds.