Home Alone 5¹
Synopsis: A 40-year-old mother of two is left behind when the kids’ father takes the family to the grandparents’ house for the weekend. Mayhem and hilarity ensue.
That’s right, I have the house to myself this weekend. John took the kids down to his parents’ last night, and I stayed home. (Except that I wasn’t home, I was at a conference hosted by my program in Boston. Minor details. I still came home. And was alone.) John’s brother is visiting my in-laws, and leaving tomorrow, so John wanted to get down there while he was still in town. I, however, had committed to being in Boston for the conference. The miraculous result is that I have a whole weekend free of parenting responsibilities.³
Can you guess what it is that I most fantasize about doing?
Not setting the alarm.
I didn’t get to do that this morning, my first morning home alone. I had to leave the house by 7:30 to get back to the conference, as I was scheduled to chair the morning session. But tomorrow… tomorrow, I have not committed to going in. In fact, I have committed to not going in. I have committed to sleeping in.
I realize that there is a strong possibility that my sleep binge fantasy will not be realized. I can envision any or all of the following happening:
- I will wake up early with a cough or cold
- I will wake up early with a headache or a stomachache
- I will wake up early with leprosy or rabies
- I will dream that the house is on fire and wake early in a panic
- The power will go out, causing the smoke detector to beep, which will make me wake early in a panic
- I will dream that I am back in high school and it’s finals day and I haven’t been to a class all semester and I don’t even know what room it’s in and wake early in a panic
- The kids will figure out how to use the phone and call me at 6:30 in the morning
- I will get a wrong number phone call from India at 5:30 in the morning
- Bumbling burglars will attempt to break in at 4:30 in the morning
- Aliens will come and abduct me at 3:30 in the morning
I can only hope that if it’s aliens, they put me in a quiet cell and let me sleep some more.
Beyond the goal of sleeping in, I also plan to work up some data, review some journal articles for a paper I need to write, read up on logistic regression and maybe mixed models, as well as clean out the refrigerator, bake some muffins and do some laundry. Hilarity and mayhem will ensue.
¹ Can you believe that there have been 4 Home Alone movies? I haven’t actually seen any of them.²
² Can you believe that Macauley Culkin is over 30 years old now? Holy crap.
³ I suppose I will have to parent again when they come home tomorrow evening. But I’ll have most of the day, right?
collecting tokens 
#6 I have that same dream at least once a month. Usually a math or history course. And sometimes I compound the problem by not wearing pants or underwear.
Yes, it’s usually math or history for me, too. I’ve been amazed at how many years that dream has persisted. (Of course, I am still in school, so that could be the root of the problem. I should do something about that…)
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you don’t have any of those scenarios wake you up. (Last week, I was woken by an earthquake at 5:30am on Thursday. It was the fifth small earthquake I felt in one week, so I’m relieved that I did not feel the one that happened this afternoon, though not as relieved as I would be if it had not happened at all.)
Remarkably, none of the scenaries happened, and not even an earthquake. I slept!
You haven’t seen ANY Home Alone movies? The first two are great, the third is crap, and I didn’t even know there was a fourth. Hollywood needs to learn to stop while it is ahead.
I hope today was wonderful! Lucky you! Except, I can barely sleep when Josh is gone and the ONE night I’ve ever been totally alone in the house, I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep at all. I’m a big chicken!
Nope, not a one. Maybe one day I’ll check out the first one. It’s practically a classic now.
I did manage to sleep, and then even get some work done. (Not as much as I would have liked, naturally. Also didn’t get around to baking muffins.)
My children saw Home Alone when they were small enough to want to imitate the main character’s inventions. Talk about hilarity and mayhem.
I imagine that was very entertaining, and possibly a little frightening, Jennifer!
I can’t believe you’re forty. You look fabulous, daaarling. So, how did that sleeping in thing work out for you? When I want it most, it doesn’t happen.
Yup, I turned 40 in June. Still adjusting to the idea…
Amazingly, I did get to sleep, and it was wonderful. I felt so well rested. Of course, last night easily undid all of that, as I was up too late, and then both kids were up in the night. So even though I got over 8 hours of sleep Saturday night, I got maybe 4 hours last night. Sigh.
I went out of town by myself last weekend and I woke up at 6:30 every damn day.