Just One Week

Image by Toban Black via FlickrWhat could be bad about my wife going to the UK for a week?
ARE YOU NUTS!
I HAVE TWO BOYS UNDER NINE YEARS OLD!

I'm over reacting, obviously.  Being a single parent for a week is hardly something to moan about.  I guess, though, I struggled with this because it was just for a little voice-over job.  There's plenty of fantastic studios capable of providing the voice-over for 4 episodes of a documentary...and computers can be connected and transfer huge files these days.  In fact, for this same documentary, Lynn interviewed Russell Brand and I shared the 4 Gb video files using Dropbox.

So it's not so much the week away I'm complaining about, it's the unnecessariness of it all.  Hmm, now that I see that written, I realize that's not really true.  You see, I was getting quite used to having Lynn make the lunches and ready the boys for school in the morning... and she'd collect them from school... and she'd make dinner for us all... and although I'd help with baths and PJs and the like, she's always the first choice for story reading (not a surprise there, I guess).  So in short, I wasn't so used to Lynn's efforts, that I wasn't able to predict how difficult it would be without her!

Through the help of friends (especially Tara), some minor miracles and an almost complete and utter lack of sleep, I still managed to work this week.

Thursday was the biggest challenge though.  We had a big gig in downtown LA with 4 hours of live streaming; first from an immersive dome and then from a theater, with a 90 minute gap to breakdown and move to the other location.  You can the watch the video archives here.   I arrived at the office at 9:30am and then arrived back home at just after 11pm.  Unfortunately our boys had decided that the unusualness of the day/week, meant they could give the babysitter the run around.  They were both still up when I got home!

Getting them up at 7am was a challenge beyond that of mere multi-camera and multi-locational live streaming.  Neither boy was interested in waking.  I literally had to drag them from their beds and sit them down at the table for breakfast.

And then it hit me, technology could be my ally once again.  This time the solution took the form of Google Voice linking me to a secret weapon... Mom!  7am here in Los Angeles is 3pm in the UK and luckily all the voice-overs were complete.  The boys were so excited to talk to her, they properly woke up and even got quite cheerful... and I manipulated that joy all the way to school... before returning home for a nap!

So I dedicate this blog post to my sons' teachers.  They had no idea, or prior warning, of the effect Lynn leaving would have on their weeks and especially their Friday!