I've been complaining about Craig's travel schedule for years now, especially the multiple conferences he attends during the summer. In 2007 we took Isaac with us for two domestic conferences (one week each in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Big Sky, Montana), but I haven't quite worked my way up to taking two kids to, say, Bejing or Budapest, both on this year's itinerary.
I'm basically a single parent whether I stay home or whether I go along -- and believe me, it's no vacation watching a child in a hotel room in a strange city while your spouse attends a conference from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. Plus it's so expensive to travel as a family of four, and we figured Laurel was still too young to get anything out of it. Maybe next year.
Craig is gone at a four-day conference right now, and it inspired me to take a closer look at his upcoming summer schedule. It looks bleak. In one 73-day stretch, he will take three trips that will cause him to be gone 35 days. For those two and a half months, he will be gone 48 percent of the time. That is literally half the summer! At one point he'll be gone for 19 days straight.
It's ridiculous to realize I was worried about missing my first four bedtimes ever (due to a short-term evening painting class), while these three trips alone will cause Craig to miss seven and a half percent of Laurel's entire life.
- - - - -
Edited to add: When I first wrote this post, I did the math wrong and thought he'd be gone 25 of 73 days, and I thought that was a lot. Imagine my horror when I discovered it is actually 35 days! That seems excessive, actually.
No comments:
Post a Comment