…and I’m paying for it. Why do I do this? I mean, c’mon. I’m smarter than this.

Marc is gone all day again. All Day. Like the morning he’ll be in Chalons, an hour and a half drive in one direction, and this afternoon he’ll be in Villiers-le-Sec, a good 30 minutes in the other direction. The afternoon is the annual meeting for the accounting firm—he’s on the board—and afterwards they’re having a nice buffet dinner for everyone, including the wives.

Am I going? No.

See, tonight he also has his singing thing going on, and as they’re meeting with the guy who’s going to teach them something on Sunday (another day he’ll be gone…again), he didn’t want to miss it.

And since I’m the one always stuck with finding a baby-sitter (can anyone say Uphill Battle, please), and because I’m more schnizzly than schnizzle, I said, “You know, if you’d rather go sing, then go sing.”

So Mr. Happier-than-happy took off this morning, after having stomped up and down the creaky, squeaky old wooden staircase three times and waking The Screamer two hours earlier than usual—and this after having kept me up until midnight because…I’m not really sure why he did that. He’ll do a drive by to pick up lunch (“Can you maybe make me a sandwich or something for tomorrow so I can eat something? Please.” he asks, in a voice more pitiful than pitiful), and he’ll make another pit stop for dinner.

Me, I’ve had hardly any sleep, the monkeys are wild (they haven’t slept enough either), I have an extra meal to prepare (Muppet, Tiggerette and I won’t be having sandwiches because that’s just bad parenting here), it’s bath night, I’ve got liquid fire runnin’ out my bum and a fever and I’m still knocked up. Life is grand. Oh, and I’ve got to have dinner on the table at the same time as the baths because He. Has. To. Go. Sing. Do I need to mention the battle with the older child when he leaves?

And I don’t want to complain. Really, I don’t. But the worst part of this whole day will be when he comes home. He’ll be in one of two moods: Mr. Grumpy-because-my-day-was-shit (like he can talk!) or Mr. Touchy-feely-let’s-get-it-on, which is about 180° and thousands of miles from while I am. Honestly neither of these men is really welcome in my life right now. Both of them set me on edge. The first one really needs no explanation because grumpy men are just dicks and everyone knows that. But that second guy, he really gets on my nerves because he Just Doesn’t Get IT. When I am tired, run ragged, pregnant and therefore VERY UNCOMFORTABLE ALL THE DAMN TIME, the very last thing I want to think about is sex. No, I want to curl up in a ball—or maybe not as even that’s not very comfy these days—and die, at least for a few uninterrupted hours.

Sleep and calm and peace are what I crave these days. And that means not having anyone, little or big, growing or grown, wanting or needing anything from me.