Laundry and Children

Being a Single Mom is Hard on Mom, Fun for the Kids

This week Marty is on a business trip.  It is the first time that he has been gone over night since we became parents.  Even though he often is gone in the evening and not around for much in the morning, it is weird to know that he is far away.

We have tried to make the best of it and soldier on.  So Sunday (Day 1 of 5), we had movie day.  I sewed and the kids watched movies all day.  We ended with Little Shop of Horrors.  They liked the singing, but as Rachel put it, "I could have done without the killing."  They did however find Steve Martin as the dentist hysterical.  Who wouldn't?

Today we did school (yes, we do school during the summer) and went over to visit cousins at Grandma's house.  Then the craziness started.  We decided that we were going to have doughnuts for dinner.  (We are just insane without Marty!)  Then we did toddler aerobics.  We had a lot of sugar to burn off.

Now the kiddos are "camping" in the boys' room.  Everyone has a tent set up and is supposed to sleep in it.  We'll see how this goes.  I have already had one report that Jack won't stay in his tent.  I have a feeling that there will be more fun and less sleep had on this camping trip.

So what have I learned after Day 2 as a single mother?  If I were a real single mother I would weigh about 350 pounds because I have bought all kinds of junk food to fill the void where my other half should be.  Also, I have learned that my kids would be crazy t.v. watching, sugar eating maniacs who live in tents and teach aerobics for pocket change.

More importantly, this little break has taught me how much I really do love my husband.  No, I don't just love him.  I am in love with him.  Not having him around makes me realize how mush I enjoy his company, how much fun we have together, and how much I miss hearing his voice.

I love you baby and I can't wait for you to come home to me.

Until then, let the chaos continue...

Just Another Day in Paradise

My day started with a kid puking in the hall.  My day ended with another kid peeing in the same hall.  All I can say is that thank God in between nobody's diaper leaked.

Just another glamorous day in the life of a stay-at-home-mom.

Just Tell the Truth

If there is one infraction that I simply will not abide in my house it is lying.  It is the single worst "crime" my children commit.  If I can not trust them to tell me the truth now about the little things, what am I going to do when they are older? 

I bring this up because we had a major lying incident this morning and there is currently a child up in her room for an hour as punishment.  Meanwhile, her partner in crime, who told the truth about what happened, was released after only 10 minutes of confinement.  I wanted to make it clear in no uncertain terms that if you do something wrong there will be consequences, but if you lie about it, things will go much worse for you.

When I was a kid, my mother used to say to us, "Whatever you do, I will always find out about it."  And she did.  At the time I thought it was some strange Mom Power.  Now that I have kids, I've learned that children are in general horrible lairs and don't cover their tracks well.  Plus, back in the day, we lived in a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone and if I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing the Mother's Mafia sprung in to action and a phone call was quickly placed to my mother.  When I got home, I would either be met with, "Is there something you want to tell me?" or "I know what you did today."  I knew at that point the jig was up and I better come clean.

I don't want my kids to do wrong or to disobey, but, if they do find themselves trotting down a wayward path, I want them to know that the quickest way to redemption is through the truth and that lying will just compound whatever situation they have gotten in to.  These are lessons that I know in my heart they must learn now.  Like the saying goes, "Little kids equal little problems.  Big kids equal..."

As kids, it is their job to push their limits and find out what they can get away with in life.  As their parent, it is my job to set those limits and hold fast to them.

Is This How They See Me?

Today Rachel and Nicholas called me in to the computer room.  They had made me a card on the computer and they were all a twitter to show it to me.

Dear Mom I know how you feel  I know somtimes you yell but I still love you From Rachel, Nicholas, Jack and Teddy Bear

I told them how sweet it was and that I loved it, but inside I was crushed.  The most significant thing about me to my children is that I yell, but they still love me.  This is not a good thing.  I feel like the worst mother ever.

To make it even worse, I thought that we had had a really nice day.  We planted 25 strawberry plants, 2 blueberry bushes, 4 broccoli plants, 4 bell pepper plants, 5 tomato plants and an herb garden.  We had a lot of fun.  The only rough patch was when Nicholas wouldn't stay out of the sprinklers and got a time out.  However, over all it was great and we worked together very nicely.

I can not say that I won't yell at my kids any more, but I am going to try to keep it in check.  I don't want them to look back on their childhood as just one long screaming match.

I am going to bed now.  I feel like the worst mother in the world.

Since I Don't Get Any Sick Days, I Will Have to Call In Dead

My throat is raw.  My lungs are on fire.  Because I can not breath through my nose, I have become a slack jawed mouth breather.  Every muscle in my body aches.  My head is pounding. Coughing is so painful that I try to put it off until there are tears in my eyes and I start to lose conciousness.  I didn't get to bed until 1 AM, because the baby slept so well while he was visiting Grandma.  And, since I am still breastfeeding, I must live as drug free as a 17th century convent nun.

So of course today would be the day that the children forget how to nap and what an inside voice is.  Mama needs a sick day.

Why is it that Jack literally (and I do mean literally) licks the toys in the pediatricians office and I am the one who gets sick?

Is She Hitting the Sauce

There is no busing at my daughter's school.  So my husband brings her in to school and I pick her up in the afternoon with the rest of the minivan brigade.

In order to fit all the parents in to the parking lot we fill up every possible space forming row after row, even filling in the isles.  Once you are parked, there is no way to get out until dismissal at which point they release one row at a time.  There is a teacher at the front of the row to tell the first car when to start and a teacher at the back of the row to direct parents around the unoccupied cars of people with other business at the church.  Trust me, this is all important to the story I am about to relay.

So yesterday, we got to the school at about 2:40 (school gets out at 3:00).  I got in my row and was quickly surrounded by other parents in the overflowing parking lot.  I turned on the DVD player for the boys and tried to take a few minutes to recover from yesterday's ordeal at the pediatricians.  I don't even remember closing my eyes, but when I opened them, I was sitting in an empty parking lot.  It was like a scene out of a science fiction movie.  I blinked and apparently everyone was sucked up to the Mother Ship.

I looked at the clock, 3:15.  HOLY CRAP!  I had been asleep in my car for over a half an hour, probably with my mouth hanging open.  Dismissal had come and gone.  Parents had filed past my car to gather up their children.  A teacher had directed cars around my car.  I have no idea how many people witnessed my Jell-O neck, slack jawed nap in the parking lot, but in my mind it was dozens.

What surprises me was that no one tapped on my window to wake me up.  Wait.  What if someone did and I was just too zonked to notice?  Great.  Now the rumor around the PTA is going to be that I must be hitting the sauce in the middle of the day.

I quickly got in line with the parents who were legitimately late to pick up their kids.  You know people with jobs, lives, too much responsibility to be taking a siesta in their car.  When Rachel noticed me, she yelled out, "Where were you?" with all the indignity of someone abandoned at school.  I tried to explain that Mommy had gotten there on time, but had to take a detour at Dreamland between arriving at the school and actually picking her up.

I think that I am going to have to have a Red Bull with a Jolt chaser before I pick Rachel up from school today.

Sometimes I Want To Go, Where Everybody...

doesn't know my kids name.

I swear, by the time we actually got to see the doctor for Nicholas' five year old check up this morning, I was going to ask them to re-measure him because we had been waiting so long I was sure that he had had time to grow.

We waited in the waiting room (an aptly named room) for over 40 minutes.  Now if I were quietly sitting reading a book, I might have been annoyed with the wait, but I was not quietly reading a book.  Instead, I was chasing a very active imp who tried to monopolize all the chairs to the point that if another kid tried to sit down he would pull the chair out from under them yelling "Mine!  Mine!  Mine!  My sit.  My sit."

I must have said, "Jack Stop It!" or "Jack!  No!" about 587,652 times.  The room was split on their feelings about Jack.  About half the folks just kept giving me looks of pity, "Oh that poor woman.  He is such a handful.  And look she had two others as well.  I'm glad my child doesn't act like that."  The other half of the room was fashioning a muzzle out of bottles and baby blankets.

When they finally called us back I breathed a sigh of relief that we would finally be in a confined area and away from curious stares so that I could drop the loving, patient, mothering lilt from my voice and just tell Jack to calm the hell down and be quiet.  But, instead of taking us to the normal exam room (which is about the size of a walk in closet), the nurse did all of Nicholas' vitals in the hall which wasn't a problem until they needed a urine sample.

Nicholas, whose aim still leaves a little to be desired, was peeing all over my hand while I held the cup as I stood on one leg using the other to try to stop Jack from taking off his diaper.  I washed my hands, re-dressed the boys and headed off to the closet sized exam room.

I am not sure what my doctor was thinking when she installed these handles in the exam room.  They aren't the round ones, but rather this type.

Well you can imagine how well those hold in the likes of Tornado Jack.  He just waits till I am distracted, pulls down in the handle and lets the sweet smell of freedom fill his lungs as he goes running down the hall screaming at the top of his lungs.

This happened three times.  The last time I was nursing Teddy when Jack took off.  I tried to pull my shirt over my exposed breast before heading down the hall, but I have a feeling that a few of the fathers got a free show.

The third time I went after him down the hall, I saw a couple of parents of infants looking at me in horror.  I would have said, "Hey, don't give me that look.  In about 18 months, this is your future your looking at.  Be afraid, be very afraid."

Also, on the trip back to the exam room after extracting Jack from the Doctor's person office where he was banging on the computer's key board, I heard the nurse in with Nicholas and him explaining, "Don't worry.  My mom will be right back.  She's trying to catch my brother."  I am waiting for DSS to show up any minute.

After about two hours we finally left the doctors office.  Nicholas got a clean bill of health, a prediction that he if he stays on this growth path he will be at least 6 foot 2, and a rather large shot (but he didn't even cry my brave boy).  Both boys got a lollipop for waiting so long, because that is exactly what Jack needed, sugar.

We've All Had Those Days

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Thinking About Mom

Today I've been thinking a lot about my mother.  You see, tomorrow is my birthday, so I've been thinking about mom and how she must have felt on this day, the day before she was to become a mother, some 30 plus years ago.

Like my two deliveries, Mom knew the date that I would be born, what with being 11 days late (sorry mom) and breached, the doctors thought that it was time for my eviction notice to be hand delivered.

Today when I spoke with her about how she felt, she told me how loved I was even before I was born and how excited she was to finally meet me.  She also told me how she felt a little sad because she and I would never be that close again.  From the next day on, she would have to share me with the world.  In short, she felt all the same emotions that I felt before my boys were born.

It is unfortunate that we aren't able to truly understand our mothers until we become mothers ourselves.  If that weren't the case, I am sure there would be more effort put in to Mother's Day and less eye rolling.  But it is the case and I know that I am truly, truly blessed to still have my mother with me as I journey down the bumpy path of parenthood.

Mom- I love you very much.  I apologize for all the tough times I put you through and I thank you for all the wonderful times we shared together.  You're still who I lean on when the road gets rough.  We may not be as physically close as we were when we were still one, but it has been wonderful sharing the world with you.  I love you with all my heart.

Why I Dream of Grocery Shopping Alone

Wednesday night I went grocery shopping alone.  It was glorious, simply glorious.  No one was begging for cookies.  There were no near death experiences involving a dancing child and a shopping cart collision.  I didn't have to say "Stop that!" even once.  It was great!

Here is a glimpse in to why it was so great.  These were taken today in the frozen food section of Harris Teeter.  Notice that I have to have Rachel actually cart around the groceries because my cart is full of boys like there was some sort of buy two get one free special.  Wouldn't all those calls for "Mommy" and "Mama" drive you up a wall.  It is a wonder we don't starve to death because if I were in my right mind I would never take these crazy people anywhere.  I assure you, it is like this every time we go to the grocery store.