It gets harder and easier at the same time!

Once again Nathan is away! And in some ways it is getting easier when he goes. I have learnt to pick my battles. Not one vegetable will pass my children's lips this week as it is too exhausting to fight three of them to eat their veggies. So we don't! Bathing them is easier now that they are pretty much drown proofed. I guess the practical things are easier to deal with. I manage the washing and the cooking and the bathing and well the cleaning was never done in the first place!
But the emotional side is getting harder. It is hard to be the Mum and the Dad. I only have one set of eyes to catch the sneaking. So the sneaking increases in Daddy's absence! And i have come to the realisation that it will continue to get harder as the boys realise that their Daddy is away. Matthew sobbed for about an hour after Nathan left last night. It probably hurt both Nathan and Matthew knowing that when Nathan left he would be missing Matthew's birthday on Saturday. And a (nearly) six year old cant go "Oh well! I'm going to miss Dad but i can handle it!" So we were left with sobbing! And the reason I know that this side is going to get worse not better is that I myself was an army brat and i remember when Dad was away we were all out of sorts. There was always an increase in squabbling.
So for the next week my mantra shall be don't sweat the small stuff! As long as they don't kill each other we are doing OK!