Ode to the Single Parents

            Single parents, I don't know how you do it.  How do you raise children by yourself? There's no way I could do this by myself on any kind of constant basis, there's so friggen much to do.

            You cook for them, you clean for them, you discipline them, you love them, care for them when they're home sick, stay up nights catching vomit, keep the house clean, you do the food shopping, catch up on emails, take off work for doctors appointments or soccer/baseball/karate/gymnastics functions, sit with them and do their homework (which is like Shark Week for me, every night, the worst, he hates it, I hate it, I lose my patience, tears, his and mine, awful), find five minutes to go to the bathroom by yourself,  AND have a job without going completely insane?  Seriously, I'm asking, HOW do you do it?  I am only a single mother various times of the year because I'm married to a Navy man, but I'm only able to manage that with any grace (ha) because I know my husband is coming BACK at some point, but you,  I'm am in awe of you, single parents.  My hat goes off to you.....or it would be, you know, if I were wearing one.  I really don't look good in hats.

             Now I'm lucky, I have a wonderful partner in my husband but as I said he has to leave on deployments a few times a year, leaving me here with our 5 year old son.  Thankfully we're fortunate enough that I can be a stay at home mom, making all these above mentioned tasks easier, but even with all of that some days I find myself barely hanging on by a thread.  Today is one of those days.  Last week our son came down with a cold, and because he's such a good little sharer he decided to pass it along to mommy!  Ugh.  So now I have it and somehow got it worse than him, fever, chills, body aches, ear infection, the whole sha-bang.  All I want is for someone to come along and smother me with a pillow, I am in hell.

           As I'm laying here having a little pity party for myself I got to thinking about all you brave single moms and dads, how you manage all this with often times multiple kids and a job to go to.  What do you do you when your kid is sick?  Do you stay home with them?  What about when YOU'RE sick, do you stay home or have you used up all of your sick days staying home with them?  Do you just suck it up and power through?  WHAT DO YOU DO?

         I'm especially curious about this because next year I'll be reentering the work force, which I'm both excited and freaked out about.  I almost had an anxiety attack after dropping Henry off at his first day of kindergarten this year, and all I was doing was coming straight home after!  What's it going to be like when I have a job and I won't be able to get to him at a moments notice?  Jeez I sound like one of those crazy moms. But truly, the thought of having to do all that I do right now, AND having a job on top of it, it's a little daunting.   Maybe I'm just feeling overwhelmed at the moment because the husband has been away for three months and I'm sick.  It's been a seriously shit day.  Waking up with a heinous ear infection in both ears (which is actually kind of cool, I've been hearing all kinds of weird noises all day because my ear drums are effed up.  Lots of high pitched ringing, beeping, buzzing, either I have an ear infection or the government has implanted listening devices in my head.  Possibly both.)

         Where was I, oh yeah, waking up in a terrible mood after a terrible nights sleep, knowing I had a million things to do.  I'm throwing a friends baby shower this weekend and still have a huge list of things to do and buy, having to make Henry's lunch for school (which is difficult because the kid doesn't like ANYTHING I put in there unless it's fruity snacks.  I seriously thought about filling the whole damn sack with fruit snacks just so I could sit down and be done with it), getting him dressed for school, which is always so much fun (I personally have to yell at him fifteen million times a day to get his clothes on for school, the only thing that comes in close to that is how many times I have to yell FINISH YOUR BREAKFAST, it's a friggen nightmare), get myself dressed, get him to school, and now I have find time for a doctors appointment since I know I need some antibiotics, get to the tax office to drop off papers needed today, and then get to another doctors appointment for something totally different clear across town later that afternoon.  All this I have to do while I can barely hold my head up and every voice and noise I hear sounds like robots in my ears, sending pain down my entire body because my stupid ears are infected!  Well I lost it.  I just started crying.  Where is my husband!!  Waaaa!  I hate being a single parent!

        My poor son, here I am, standing in the kitchen, ears killing me, having to figure out what in the hell to make for lunch, shaky feverish aching body, and tears streaming down my face AHHHH.  This isn't supposed to be happening to me, I took an Airborne for crissakes! What a crock.

       He was such a sweet heart, he said, "I'm sorry you aren't feeling good mommy" and then he went in his room and got all his school clothes on WITHOUT ME HAVING TO YELL IT AT HIM ONE TIME TO DO IT.  Surely a first.  See!  I knew he could do it! Why can't he do that EVERY day?   He even finished his breakfast without me asking, little sweet boy, wanting to help out mommy.  Maybe I should bust out the tears more often, get some stuff done around here!  No, it's terrible to see your mom cry, I've only seen my mom cry a few times, and each time is worse than the last.  Moms are supposed to be strong and resilient, seeing them in any sort of vulnerable state is really fucking scary as a kid. I'll try not to do it again, but today, shoot, sometimes you just lose it.

          The bonus of all this was when I picked him from school the gym teacher came up to me and asked, with sad, understanding head tilted to the side, "How are you feeling?"

I said, "Henry told you I was crying, didn't he."  She laughed and said yes, he was telling everyone that his mommy was sick and was crying.

Terrific.

 I'm so glad all the teachers at school, and all of his classmates no doubt (who probably went home and told their parents) could be in on this stellar mommy moment of mine.  Oh well, there are worse things...I think.

      Well, it's been about three days that I've been sick, the house is a wreck, I haven't showered in days, there are toys and laundry everywhere, I could give a crap.  I'm sick, I'm supposed to clean?  I don't think so.  But I'm lucky, I at least know that TOMORROW I can sleep. If I can get through today I just might make it, but I know if I had an actual JOB to go to I would lose my shit.  I can look forward to my husband coming home soon and lending me a helping hand, but you, single parents, what about you?  You just power through a I guess, without, I'm assuming, being constantly drunk or bursting into tears on a daily basis.  You are stronger people than I, let me tell you.  If I were feeling better I'd be toasting you with my glass of chardonnay, so for now I'll just down this spoonful of DayQuil in your honor.  Here's to the single parents.