Brightening my days

Well, this past weekend I experienced the teeniest tiniest bit of single parenthood. Now I am certainly not trying to say it was as challenging as actually BEING a single parent but it gave me a little taste and one thing is for certain... I am really glad I am not doing this alone, not only because I love my fiance but because it is bloody hard work.
I have friends who are single parents and they rarely complain, I also have friends whose partners work offshore, interstate and shift work and none of them really complain either but boy it really is hard work, have I said that already?
Craig was away for four days this week and four the last being home only 3 days in between.
While he was away it was just me and my beautiful babies, they were well behaved and are generally great kids, I did not have the financial stresses many single parents have, I did not have to go to work and have no-one else there to pick up the slack, I was still a SAHM and we pretty much did what we normally do. The big difference was the lack of a break, and I am not even talking about a break from the kids, I actually mean that I hadn't realised how much Craig's schedule of leaving for work and coming home and being there of an evening 'broke' our day up for us.
When the alarm goes off in the Morning, Jaz comes in for a morning snuggle, Craig gets up and it is time to start the day, breakfasts, brushing teeth, you know, the usual. When it gets to mid afternoon I start getting the kids calmed down, dinner on and give the house yet another tidy up in preparation for his return home (OK, that makes me sound like I am back in the 1950's, but seriously, he works all day, everyday to make sure we are well looked after, the least I can do is keep the house welcoming for him - not that things always work out that way, there are many occasions where he comes home to dishes on the sink, toys all over the house and an overly emotional and exhausted Mum and two grumpy, exuberant babes).
These last two weeks, without Craig's routine to keep us sane, without his return home from work to look forward to each day the days just seemed to roll into the nights and the nights into the days and so on.
There was a serious lack of adult stimulation in the evenings, even if it is just me listening to a run down of his day or watching Jaz jump all over her Dad and be played with and have stories read while I serve up dinner. When I finally did get both kids down for bed I sat up, watched a bit of telly and headed to bed only to wake a few hours later to feed Kayde, a few hours after that to settle Jaz after a nightmare and a few after that to tend to Kayde's early morning feed (mostly a cuddle, I don't think he even feeds properly at that time truth be told), then up to start the day when Jaz wants breakfast, after that the rest of the day just seemed to drag until the next day. We still had fun and played games and did housework and even visited some family and friends but it just wasn't the same.
As I said at the beginning, this is nothing compared to actually being a single parent but being given even just that little taste of it has left me more thankful than usual that I share my life and my children with a very significant 'other'. And it is not about not being able to handle the kids or the house or any of that, it is about watching them interact with their Dad, having someone there to acknowledge how darned cute they are being, being able to look at each other and laugh when one of them does something unexpected just to have that little bit of acknowledgement of a job well done and having that to look forward to each day makes my days brighter than they otherwise would be.