While the husband's away

Anthony's gone for another week this week and I've decided that this is the best time to give potty training a go.

I figure that with just one parent steering the boat there will be less mixed signals and different communication. I've often done major parenting things when I was solo for this reason and it's always worked out the best.

I feel lots of guilt about it, too.

I have really grown to like my time apart from Anthony. Everything's just easier. The house, life, the snoring and sleeping, just everything. There's another upside to the distance, though: I miss him. All the drudgery of everyday married life dissipates and I can find that kernel of longing that so often goes missing with everyday contact.

I don't know if it's our relationship in particular, or what every couple experiences, but where we're at today I would go crazy if Anthony and I never got some space from each other. How different my tune is today than it was two and a half years ago when his travel began, or even a year ago. I would miss him terribly and I was terrified each night, imagining that disgusting ghoul figure from The Ring dragging itself all over my bedroom floor ready to hiss at me and eat me on its way back down to hell (yeah, really).

Now, I drink wine, watch a TV show or Facebook, do chores, and go right to bed with the covers laid securely over me with my arms and legs pointing out like a compass; not a twitch of worry in my body left as I sink off to sleep dreaming of past and future presidents getting randy with me.

I think this is the [early] middle-age crunch. I'm not just going crazy and my relationship isn't just staid - it's just the nose-to-the-grindstone phase of our lives where we push and fight and bust our balls for Anthony's career so we can be stable and cruise a little later on, right? Right?

In any case, Hollis and I have already had a lovely morning where he's wearing colorful underpants and an oversized t-shirt. I'm staying in my pajamas all day and he's staying in just his socks and potty-training attire. He's already yelled, "Mama! Wet!" once when he peed and we went and sat on the potty with his special "pink potty-paci" and select books. Nothing in the pot, yet, but I have hope, patience, and a pretty good sense of humor about all of this.

There's something that says "commitment" like nothing else when it's just you, a toddler, and a pair of cotton undies.

Meanwhile, I'm going to also enjoy my alone-time and focus on happy dreams, happy reunions, and happy nights with friends. Of course all of this will happen while I'm sprawled out spread eagle on my bed in pajamas I've been wearing for 48 hours.

Ahh, the solo-life.