October 30-November 5, 2005
This past week has been my turn to take care of the kids and the house single-handedly, since Rob (my husband) was out of town (at CERN, no less) for work. Although Rob and I are both in particle physics, Rob likes travelling much less than I do, so as a result he ends up travelling for work only two or three times a year--and this is someone whose day job is on an experiment that will take place Geneva Switzerland!
Since I am much more involved with the day to day necessities of the kids than Rob is, when Rob goes away the biggest difference in my schedule is that I just end up doing a more clearning and straightening up the house, and overall the house is much less clean. Conversely, when I go away Rob's whole daily routine changes, from getting breakfast ready to putting the kids to bed at night. Either way, whomever is taking care of the kids solo ends up going to sleep right after the kids do...the only difference is that I have dishpan hands (which makes me wonder if Rob's been wearing gloves all this time).
Somehow having to fly solo once in awhile feels like good exercise for me: I end up prioritizing a lot more than I usually do, and somehow when Rob comes back to town I all of a sudden feel like I have all this freedom and extra time on my hands, even though that can hardly be true. I used to call this "single Mommin' it", but in fact I imagine that it's really nothing like actually being a single parent. There is still so much I don't bother with in the house...
The funny thing about this week feeling like taking a dose of my own medicine is that I got the tables turned on me at work too. I've been doing lots of "taking stock of things" and preparing for a big review of the MINERvA Experiment that will take place on December 13-15 at Fermilab. We're holding all these internal reviews, and trying to get a bunch of documentation together that says exactly what we're planning to build and how and why we're building it (and how long the whole thing will take!). One of the things I did this very week was come up with a list of outside experts whom I'd want to invite to review the project. The funny thing is that the very same week I submitted that list to the organizers, I also received an invitation asking me to serve as an "outisde expert" on a very similar kind of review, only it'll be a review that takes place at a laboratory I've never worked at. I guess what goes around comes around...
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