How Do You Single Moms Do It?

October 13, 2010 By 12 Comments

Last week my husband was down for the count with walking pneumonia. He was pretty well comatose each morning while the girls and I got ready for school and work. In fact, there were a few times I nudged him just to make sure he was still alive.

Thankfully the 8-year-old can fend for herself and despite being very particular about her clothes and hair, is just as antsy as I am to get the heck out the door. Miss A, however, is my child that plods through the motions of getting ready like she’s doing the breast stroke through oatmeal.

Hubby is always up and checking e-mail and working at his desk in the morning while we girls get ready (because really it’s best to avoid the bathroom while we do our girl thing) but is always there to lend a hand. Miss A’s hair is notoriously major bed head and he is a great tangle tamer. I can also always rely on him to get her tennis shoes tied just right. It’s just nice, too, to know there’s another adult human being in the mix. You know, so I’m not unnumbered.

Granted I was parenting solo under the influence of PMS last week but if my temporary single mom experience was any indication of what I’d be like as a solo parent, then I’m making sure my husband never gets sick during the school year again or else I will be taking the girls to school on my broom.

Filed Under: Parenting, Working Mom 12 Comments

This Is Your Brain, This Is Your Brain On PMS

January 28, 2010 By 37 Comments

Head out the door late with 7-year-old to pick up 4-year-old at daycare as hubby is down for the count with horrible sinus infection.

4-year-old has meltdown after struggling to buckle her seatbelt in dimly lit SUV and 7-year-old calling her baby.

Threaten children with the “NO COOKIE at Publix” decree.

Arrive at store quite befuddled as children bicker the entire way.

Realize upon walking across parking lot that you do not have the VERY CRITICAL chili recipe printout for the weekend and VERY CRITICAL grocery list as snow is in the forecast and so help me God what if we don’t have milk? You do have coupons, though, go figure.

Go back to car and rummage through various and sundry daycare and school and work papers tossed on to front passenger seat.

Yell at children to not wander off in parking lot without you.

Give up on finding recipe OR grocery list.

Enter store. Call husband to e-mail you VERY CRITICAL OR WE WILL SURELY STARVE THIS WEEKEND recipe.

Tell girls they might be able to have a cookie after shopping if “they are good.” Let them split a Sprite. Caffeinated sugar on empty stomachs…you are mother of the year!

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh your damn iPhone waiting for recipe to come through. Realize you’ve been at store 10 minutes and you have peanut butter, a green pepper, and an onion in your cart.

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Damn E-MAIL!

Finally get e-mail with VERY CRITICAL chili recipe. Gather ingredients.

Get to meat department which is wiped out apparently due to forecasted snow. Discuss cuts of meat with butcher. Spend WAY too much damn time OCDing over meat. (Minds out of gutter, please.)

Glance over at children. 4-year-old is climbing out of car cart that she is too freaking old to be in any way and accidentally dumps ALL your ever loving coupons out of your nifty new coupon organizer all over the floor.

Girls sense your displeasure. Perhaps it was the way you tossed your meat. (Again, minds out of gutter, please.)

Girls gather coupons which are all over the place.

Oh, hai! See a fellow mom from school.

Suddenly very aware of the fact that you are wearing black yoga pants and a t-shirt from your afternoon workout and haven’t washed your hair in two, OK three, days.

Say hello and joke about coupons all over floor and your attempt to be organized.  SO FUNNY.

Begin to flee store.

For some ungodly reason remember one more item. Head to back of store. 4-year-old insists on “helping” you and pushing behemoth car cart at a snail’s pace.

Lose patience.

Realize it’s after 6 and you are still in grocery and you still need to pick up takeout.

Head to check out.

7-year-old declares she must go to the bathroom and it can’t wait.

4-year-old runs after her and nearly gets knocked out as someone leave s the family restroom.

Chase after 4-year-old, wait for her to use restroom and wash her hands. This takes what feels like another 10 minutes.

4-year-old realizes she has never gotten a cookie.

Inform her no cookie. It is now almost 6:30 and no one has eaten dinner including your poor sick husband who had offered to go pick something up.

4-year-old cries and lays down on PUBLIC BATHROOM FLOOR OMG.

Somehow get out of the store and in car without anyone’s head imploding.

Clearly spot recipe and grocery list on floorboard.

The End.

Filed Under: Bad Hair Days, My Girls, Parenting 37 Comments

Psycho Mom Syndrome And Beer Therapy

September 19, 2008 By 17 Comments

I was having a day and I’d only been home since 3 o’clock.

The witching hour came early. The girls were fighting and by 5 o’clock I found myself waiting for the hubby’s usual call to check in and discuss dinner, the usual. Everything seemed to be amplified a few notches as I had PMS, which at my house stands for Psycho Mom Syndrome.

The hubby got home from work a little early and I told him I needed to run to the grocery store for a few things. Translation, “I need to get out of this house so I can escape. And buy beer.” It’s pretty sad when you’re “only” with your kids from 3 o’clock on during the school week and your kids drive you crazy. Seriously, I don’t know how you full time SAHMs do it. Then again, PMS makes my short mama fuse even shorter.

As I was heading toward the checkout line I heard a scream. Not just any scream either ya’ll, but the scream of a child having an impressive meltdown. And then it happened again and again like clockwork every few seconds and then the screaming got closer and closer until I saw a mom pushing her son in a cart and realized he was just screaming for the hell of it like he was being tazered every 30 seconds or being forced to eat canned beets. The mom had that beleaguered zombie mom look of resigned surrender that a weary mother has when she’s grocery shopping at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday and would rather be on a Caribbean island with her own personal cabana boy, margarita fountain, endless supply of People magazines, and miracle drug that would guarantee she’d tan and never burn or wrinkle or develop cellulite or spider veins.

I gave the cashier “the look” and she gave me “the look” and I started emptying my cart as fast I could all the while thinking, “I came to the store to escape my kids, not be subjected to other kids…let me out of here, I need a beer!”

Filed Under: Bad Hair Days, Parenting 17 Comments
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