Jake attended his first in-person conference (since the pandemic shutdowns) this past weekend! In February of 2020, we bought new dress shirts, ties, and pants for Jake in anticipation of all the conferences he would be attending starting that year. Finally, after two years, Jake was able to wear his “new” clothes!

We were both really excited leading up to Jake’s first weekend away. Jake because he was looking forward to his first conference in person! And Cindy because of all the “me time” she would get! We quickly realized how much we missed each other and being solo isn’t as fun as we both thought it would be.

Jake really enjoyed his conference. There’s just something about being able to network in person that is lost over Zoom conferences. He met a lot of interesting people and even had some pretty deep conversations! Even though traveling alone is a lot easier, it is a lot more lonely. He found himself missing Cindy and Baby R. In the past, Jake would be able to video call Cindy at the end of the day and we’d have time to catch up. But it was a lot harder to squeeze in a call this time with the time difference and baby’s schedule. Plus, it was just hard to have a conversation with a baby screeching in the background.

Cindy realized solo parenting is SO MUCH HARDER than she thought it would be. Two hours into Friday morning and she was already counting down the hours until Jake’s return. It didn’t help that Baby R took short naps all day Friday, so she barely got a break. But after Baby R went down for the night, it was absolute freedom. A well-deserved “me time”. Cindy did TWO face masks, gorged herself on some Hot Cheetos, and shamelessly watched The Kardashians & Selling Sunset.

The weekend was a little easier– Saturday she went out to visit her dad and Sunday she went to church! The “activities” really helped break up the day. A friend who went through a similar experience the week before shared she did a lot of shopping the week her husband was gone. Cindy half-wished she’d gotten the same idea earlier! Her friend ended up returning a lot of the stuff she bought lol.

Overall, we both survived our weekend apart. It was good to miss each other, but we’re hoping it will be a while before we do this again (Cindy especially). As for Baby R, she didn’t seem to have a clue that Jake was gone.