A Plug for Polygamy

I new the day would come when my husband, Mike, would need the company of others. We’re your typical family – two kids, one lovingly spoiled Labrador named after the American composer of “Rhapsody in Blue.” Yet variety is the antidote to matrimony, right?

Fortunately for me, the variety my husband needed was the hiking companionship of a his best guy friend, who was also the best man at our wedding. He left before dawn to drive with Dave to Yosemite for a hike to Dewey Point, affording infinite views of Half Dome and Clouds Rest, plus a bunch of other big rocks the names of which I do not know.

A day of single parenthood, here I come.

It started out surprisingly well. Paige (7 months) and Nolan (3 years) and I slept in, snuggled in the red flannel sheets of the big boy bed (what Nolan calls the full size bed in his big boy room). He’s still sleeping in the crib room in, um, his crib. Paige sacks out in the Pac-n-Play, in the big boy room. The slept in until EIGHT, GLORIOUS EIGHT! Most mornings, N wakes at 6:30ish and Paige and I snooze til 7:00ish.

It bolstered my confidence, this sleeping in. As if I could attribute it to me. Hell, why not? Isn’t that what parents do? And strangers, for that matter. We attribute the good things kids do to our good parenting. And strangers are very talented at attributing our kids bad behavior to our bad parenting practices.

In the morning, we went to the Y. Can’t beat the free (and fabulous) day care at our location. Then we took my friend Stephanie (who’s seven point five months pregnant) to a few classy toy stores in Willow Glen, where toys are all made in the USA of wood from sustainable forests.

An experienced auntie, Steph was like a second parent, she essentially assumed control and authority or Nolan, wandering grabber of toys.

All grabbed out, Nolan crashed for a good two hours at home (good because Paige and I did likewise). But it was the long post-nap evening that made me wish for several wives.

One of us could have done the dishes while another bathed the kids (a rule in our polygamous fantasy family would have to be only two kids, the two we already have). Wife number three would straighten the house while number four (that’s me, but in no particular order), would have gone out to pick up take out and a bottle of wine.

With only one of me, kids in the carseat, we did manage to make it to Applebee’s curbside pick up. Hooray! Nolan and I celebrated by sharing limp lukewarm French fries on the way home.

I really can’t complain. The hub was back from Yosemite before bedtime and he takes off for the guy thing so seldom – too seldom – that he has enough dad currency to stay away perhaps for a 3-night backcountry trip. I’ll just summon the wives. The best part about them would definitely be the female company. The chatting, commiserating, and Chardonnay. And they’d probably love that we watch HGTV.