Ready for Brian's return

Don't get me wrong, Ellie and I have had a lot of fun the past five days... but I'm ready to return to a two-parent household. I've said to a couple friends this week, "I don't know how single parents do this." Honestly. This has been an exhausting week as the sole caregiver, compounded by the fact that I was finishing up a monster assignment at work. I definitely relaxed my standards around the house during Brian's absence. Case in point: when Ellie unrolled the entire role of TP from our bathroom on Thursday... I did not spend the extra time haphazardly re-rolling it onto the cardboard thingy. I wadded it all up on the counter and proceeded to use it from there, as needed. (Sorry for the TMI ;)
Another small example of the unexpected tumult of being the only parent arose when we ran out of dog food on Thursday morning. That's right, we actually have three "kids" in this household. And Radar and Muzzy weren't keen on the idea of a crash diet. Instead of making Brian stop on his way home from work, Ellie and I had to set off to Sams Club. We had fun doing cart rides around the store and getting free yogurt samples. But when it came time to wrestle the 50-pound bag of dog food into the cart... and later out of the cart and into the car, it was less enjoyable. Ellie enjoyed the show while I strained and almost split the bag open in the middle of the parking lot. But we managed!
A couple other gems:

• As I carried in 10 grocery bags on Saturday, I let Ellie roam for a minute in the backyard. When I came back outside, I found her on her hands and knees in the grass, literally shoving handfuls of mud into her mouth. I'm hoping and choosing to believe it was super-clean mud. Even after wiping her mouth out, she had dirt stuck in her teeth. Brian's question to me after this story was: "Did you get any pictures?" No, sorry.
• Also enjoyable was when she flipped her bowl of cheerios with milk on the dining room table so she could smack her hands into the mess. There was milk everywhere, including in the cracks of the table. I'm sure my mom and siblings are horrified, even from afar.

In addition to her antics, Ellie and I covered a lot of ground the past few days. Grocery shopping for the week, getting her haircut, shopping (i.e. running around) at Wal-Mart, drawing with sidewalk chalk, playing at the park, covering a combined 12+ miles of running (her in the stroller, me pushing), shopping and playing at the mall, and some yet-to-be-determined fun this afternoon when she wakes up from nap.
As you can tell, Ellie is back to her fireball self this weekend. The lab tests haven't turned up any signs of infection, it sounds like Ellie is officially in the clear. And I'm officially ready to hand her off to her dad when he returns tonight. Well, until she runs toward me with her arms outstretched reaching for a hug and then forcing a wet kiss on me. I'm never too tired or stressed for that.