A Salute to Single Parents and People with a Long Commute

Single parents of the world, if I could give all of you a two week vacation to a tropical island resort, I would, because you deserve a break.  I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful husband to share the work of parenting with and I still yearn for a tropical vacation approximately 27-28 times an hour on any given day (quadruple that in the winter).

I have extra appreciation for single parents this week because Rich had to go out of town for work for 5 days and I am on day 4 of "single momming it." It's actually gone pretty well. I am managing just fine.
I've even enjoyed my time with Valerie more than I expected this week.  We've had some sweet morning snuggles and some fun moments that probably wouldn't have happened if dad was here.

But she is also entering a SUPER fun phase of being SUPER whiny and clingy. When we're home she wants to be held all the time and will loudly whine and carry on if she's not being properly catered to. And her demands can be challenging to meet if one needs to, say, make dinner, or take off one's coat.

We get home around 6-6:30 every evening and she's already starving for dinner, so I immediately try to distract her so I can quickly heat up/cut up some dinner for her. Meanwhile she's whining and moaning at my feet to pick her up and take her over to the fridge so she can point to the pictures of babies on the fridge.  Her demands are really pretty simple.  "I don't know why you can't just stop what you're doing and help me look at my baby friends on the fridge Mom! and by the way I'M STARVING WHERE IS MY DINNER WOMAN!?!?"

Then, there's dinner, which I have to admit is getting faster and better every day. Two words that usually describe her eating dinner are slow and messy. But she is actually improving in both these areas. The past two nights she's eaten really good dinners, not taken forever, and not thrown excessive handfuls of food on the floor. So, fantastic progress there.

Evenings can be a bear and they are a lot less fun by myself than with Rich's help.  When we're both home, we take turns picking her up from school (and enduring the sometimes fussy/trafficky drive home), and then one of us can play with her while the other gets dinner ready and we can coach her through dinner together, and then one of us can put her to bed while the other cleans up.

Alone, I get to leave work, drive to her school, pick her up and try to entertain her while battling traffic, make dinner, listen to whining, watch her eat, put her to bed and then clean up. Thank god she's asleep by 7:30-8 because that is an exhausting two hours after a full day of work.

Mornings are not so bad. She's pretty cheerful and cute in the morning (once she gets her bottle!!!  It's like the toddler equivalent of coffee.  DO NOT talk to her til she's sucked down 8 oz of milk in one go).

The worst part about single mom mornings is the extra driving.  Rich usually does the morning daycare drop-off because it's close to his work. It's completely out of the way for me. We live 7 minutes away from my work, but when I have to drop her off first, it takes closer to 30-40 minutes.  And I really, really hate driving in traffic.

Here I will admit that I am terribly spoiled by my 7 minute commute.  It's the BEST FRICKIN THING EVER. It makes me crabby to have to spend 80 minutes of my day driving rather than 14. I realize some people have far longer commutes than this.  Like one or even two hours each way.  I would recommend dramatic life changes for those people... if it were me.  I could not cope with such a long commute every day. Way too much time lost. If it's a driving commute, that is.  A bus or train commute where you can take a nap, work or surf the web is a different animal. That's not so bad.  But driving for more than an hour a day every day would seriously downgrade my standard happiness quotient.

So, single parents and people with long commutes...and, lord have mercy, people who are both(!!!!)... I salute you, brave citizens. I have nearly survived my 5 days of single parenting and extra driving and I can't wait to get back into my spoiled working mom routine where I have tons of help. Hopefully this experience will help me to properly appreciate how easy I have it.

It's a good life. Reading back through this, it sounds like a pretty dreary daily routine, but I honestly feel like I have it all. Family and work and friends and great health... My daughter is healthy and growing and turning into an awesome little person.  It's a lot of work, but she also brings us so much joy. I get to spend my days with people I love and people I laugh with and pretty soon there will be drinking on patios too.  It doesn't get any better than that!