A Day in My Life

This is the life of a single parent:  Last night I had to go to the grocery store after work, before picking up the baby at daycare.  I got home at 6:00, or shortly thereafter, to find Hannah and Eli picking up the huge pieces of glass from the table that Sam, in a fit of rage, kicked and broke.  Sam was sitting on the couch crying, amidst the piles of clean laundry that have been folded three or four times-they don't put it away, then when I go to bed (I sleep on a hide-a-bed in the living room) I have to move it in order to make my bed.  Owen had been crying all of the way home from the daycare for whatever reasons (okay, he is not quite 18 months old-does he NEED a reason?), and instead of getting to sit on the couch with me and snuggle like he really would have liked to have done, I had to hand him to his sister right away so I could deal with the tiny shards of glass still littering the floor.  I was so furious that I couldn't even say anything to Sam, so while Hannah was holding Owen, I went into the kitchen to start making dinner.  By this time, it's 6:45, I still have groceries to put away, the dishes I had asked be loaded into the dishwasher were still sitting in the sink, which meant I had to wash them before I could even start dinner...and as I was surveying the mess, Owen came wandering into the kitchen, still crying.  Apparently Hannah had gotten a phone call, so just left Owen on the couch and went into the bedroom to talk.  I don't know where Sam was, but Eli was, at least, doing his homework.  Dinner, and while it was cooking, I had to intervene in two fights between the boys, one where Sam said some naughty things and ended up sitting on the couch with a bar of soap in his mouth.  With one thing and another, it was after 9 by the time I got the little boys to bed, despite bedtime bing at 8:30.  I had to tell Hannah three  times to get off the phone before finally just disconnecting it-she knows she is not allowed to talk after 9 pm, but was taking advantage of the fact that I was busy with the little boys.  I also had to remind Eli, over and over again, that he has only three weeks to complete the missing assigments in his Algebra class-all 13 of them-or he was going to have to be put back into the mainstream classes.  Steve came over as well, which under the circumstances was not something I needed (though to give him credit, he is making one or two positive changes).  Finally, finally, I got everyone gone or in bed and asleep, and I looked at the clock to find it already 10:00; no time for a few minutes of quiet, no time for alone time, just time for bed; 5:00 comes awfully early.  And Owen woke up at 3:30 crying again, so I took him to bed with me and....you know how it goes.

 It has been a rough couple of weeks.  Sam has had the chicken pox, and being a single mom, this has created a huge scheduling problem.  I have been blessed in that Steve has actually taken Sam to work with him the last three or four mornings, which means I have only had to take a few hours off in the afternoons while waiting for the older kids to come home from school.  However, I am on a strict budget, so the thought of going without 15 hours on my next check is a big worry.  I had to take time off on Wednesday to go to a conference at Eli's school because he went from being an A's honor student to failing all but one class (which was Art), as well as getting into some trouble in addition to the failing grades.  You know, I am just tired.  This, for me, is one of the hardest things about being a single parent (and I will say here that even though Steve and I are in counsling and working on things, he is in no way a hlp at this point, at least most of the time) is not only doing it all, but being, all of the time, tired.  I love my kids, with all of my heart, and I would do anything for them-and DO, on a daily basis-but there are times when I just need to be seen as a woman, a person, something besides just being a mom.  The tiredness, sure, that could easily be cured by a few good night's sleep, but it is so much more than lack of sleep.  It is crying in bed at night with fear and exhaustion and the sure knowledge that it will be like this again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  I know I have a good life; I am unutterably blessed, and I have these moments of sheer joy and pride at the way I have managed, single-handedly, to keep 4 kids alive and well and, yes, thriving.  So this isn't a my-life-is-shit post, but you know, sometimes it is just so, so much harder than I even would like to admit.  And I do it here because in my real life, on a day to day basis, I have to keep on the mask, pretend that I am doing better than I am.  Why is that?  Because by nature, we single parents are expected to fail, and I will be damned if I will let anyone see my family in the same light as every other statistic.