Absent Parenting

I have been an absent parent this summer. By this I mean I have been physically present but not all there . I have been preoccupied with work mainly and have let the husband pick up the load on the home front . His job allows for some flexibility in summer and we have taken advantage of this . He has been taking the girls up to bed for several weeks now and taking care of all their pre bed tasks , with me just following through on the actual lying down with them in bed until they sleep . I definitely have the easier job as it means I have to just lie still in bed usually spoiling my eyes playing on my phone in the dark under covers while Beetle moves around and tries to sleep .

I realized this all yesterday when I for a change decided to take the girls up to bed , leaving the hubs to actually look over something for my work .Bandar brushes her teeth herself and is fairly easy . I did the regular diaper change for Beetle and then took her in to brush her teeth . That is when I realized this was really the first time in my life that I was brushing Beetle’s teeth ! My first thought was holy moly , she is our second child and we have not been very diligent with her teeth care at all . Bandar was wrestled with twice a day for a thorough teeth brushing form age 1, but I had no memory of ever brushing Beetle’s teeth morning or night and Beetle is over two years old . I asked her which one was her brush – the orangey one she said , where is your paste I asked and she handed her trainer tooth paste to me . I squeezed out some paste and asked her to open her mouth and completely expected her to put up a fight but she was surprisingly very compliant . That is when I realized the hubs had taken care of this by himself every day – morning and evening , trained her completely by himself and I clearly had no clue . Part of me was a tad disappointed that I would not be wrestling any more toddlers to brush their teeth again as I had missed that stage with Beetle with nothing to show from a career standpoint for the work I had put in instead . But then common sense prevailed and I was just glad that the hubs had taken over in the area and saved me all the trouble . I have a fabulous partner I can depend on to share the load and that is all that matters.