Since Pappa S is working 15-hour days opening his hotel, I find myself with a lot of solitary time in the evenings. Our miniature meatloaf goes to bed around 6-6:30 every night (I know, I know, everyone hates me….), so there are still several hours to kill before I can reasonably permit myself to go to bed as well.

I’m not complaining, I enjoy a quiet night alone just as much as every other full-time mother. I have a couple different options of how to spend my time – take a look and see if you can figure out which one should not be included on future lists if I want to preserve what little sanity I have left:

1. Reading – I go through books as quickly as a French chef goes through butter. I thought I’d have less time to read after our baby was born, but it turns out it’s quite the opposite. Every guest that visits us is instructed to bring me their latest reading treasures, and I’m not picky about the genre. If you enjoyed it, pay it forward and send it my way.
2. Graboid – I discovered this online streaming service a few years ago as a way to keep up with American television while living abroad. I may be far away, but I still need my weekly dose of Grey’s Anatomy every now and then. When I’m home alone in the evenings, I watch the really trashy shows that I can’t admit to in real life (hellooooo, Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor Pad). I’m so ashamed.
3. Cooking – All my friends know that I’m a fanatic list-maker. And without a regular job in Gran Canaria to occupy my brain and list-making mania, I do the only other reasonable thing you could expect… I plan meals. I make lists of ingredients. I take Per Christian to the market during the day. I buy ingredients and cross them off my list. And then I cook all night because our refrigerator is overflowing and needs to be emptied. So if Pappa S isn’t at home in the evenings, you can find me either in the kitchen cooking or else making another list somewhere. (And, yes, I realize this sounds slightly sad and pathetic to all my fellow MBA colleagues out there, but I promise you’ll enjoy a full stomach whenever you visit Casa Svendsen.)
4. Blogging – I have more than one post on here that was written in a cloudy haze of solitary red wine drinking (present post included). Probably not a great idea, but I do notice that those posts tend to get more hits than the soberly-written ones. Go figure.
5. Look at Old Photos and Videos of Per Christian – This one is definitely the kicker. Right as Pappa S and I have decided that we’re perfectly content with our little threesome and feel no need to repeat the experience, I do something stupid like watch old baby videos. The problem is that they’re just soooo cute, it makes me want to do it all over again. Uh oh…..

So, yeah, of all five items above, the last one is the most likely to send me flying over the cookoo’s nest. Of course these videos make me nostalgic for baby-hood; they capture all the wonderful giggles and first-time movements of our own freshly-minted human being. We don’t have any videos of late-night feedings or screaming sessions. There are no videos of mommy slurping coffee with her hair standing on end after a sleepless night. There are no videos of me scouring the internet for answers to why my baby won’t sleep/eat/poop/sleep. They’re all good times, and they make my uterus scream out for a repeat.

So I think it’s best that I stick to drunken blogging and trashy television on my nights alone. We really are a happy little threesome over here – and I even have the videos to prove it.