When The Cat Is Away (again)...

The mice play (again.)

Which is a nice way of saying that DH is out of town again, for about 4 days. Now normally I'd use this as an opportunity to stage a mini-revolt. Regular readers of this blog know that I use my DH's work travel as an opportunity to either turn into Slacker Mom, or just plain Crazy Mom. So, you know, I might throw out his t-shirts from 1964. Tidy up his side of the room, because he really won't miss that issue of "Submarine Monthly" from 3 years ago that he swears he is going to read. Or I might change jobs, cut my hair off, renovate my wardrobe, paint something, acquire a pet (or two), acquire a piercing (or two), let the kids play hookey from school and watch TV all day, have pizza for dinner several nights in a row, not bother to do any housework, buy a new car, acquire a tattoo (or two) ... really, there's a whole list of things I tend to do (or want to do) while my DH is away. Now it should be said that he really wouldn't mind my doing those things while he was in town. He might raise an eyebrow, but in general he's so sickeningly supportive and lovey-dovey and just plain nice about everything, that he takes my craziness in his stride. Bless him. This whole quiet normalcy thing is probably why I tend to break out the wierd stuff while he's away. Because, you know, it just might get a reaction out of him.

It never does. Partially because the show-off in me feels it necessary to blog about my exploits, and DUH, he reads my posts when he's gone. So the surprise factor isn't really there. Partially it's because he's my best friend, so I call him within ten seconds of committing some (minor and petty) craziness and say, "GUESS what I've just done? Can't guess? Okay, I've [insert minor and petty craziness]!" Partially it's because I attach more value to these things than he does - what I consider a big deal, he considers an "Eh, so?"

For the last couple of days I've been trying to think of craziness I can commit while he's away. This coming Wednesday is his birthday, so there were some good opportunities there, as in, "I got this tattoo just for you, sweetie!" I wonder, though....isn't it a bit control freak overachiever of me to be PLANNING my madness? I can totally picture this as a "to do" list:

1. Go crazy
2. Do something which you think is crazy
3. Blog about it
4. Call DH and tell him about it
5. Realise you're being silly, it's not that crazy at all. Start again.
6. Go crazy.
7. Repeat steps 2 -7 ad naseum until you come to the conclusion that you're so normal, and so straight, and frankly so bloody mother-of-three-in-the-'burbs that you're never really going to do anything all that bad in the first place, so might as well give up now.
   

So after several days of trying to come up with a craziness-to-do list, I'm still left with nothing. Seriously. Maybe this is because I have tons of normal stuff to get done. You know, like open a business (T minus one week), do mountains of laundry (currently, literally, to my knees), take care of three energetic, what-are-we-doing-today-Mum kids who are on Spring Break, buy an oven worth $6,000+, go to work, finish two giant school assignments, and oh yeah did I mention open a business?! Minor stuff, you know.

So maybe this is a week for calm rather than for added madness. Now there's a crazy thought.