How I Do It, Pt. 3: What Its Worth

I think parenting, especially single parenting, can best be described as a very precarious juggling act.

You are constantly monitoring several spinning plates, and making sure-or trying to make sure that nothing falls and breaks.

You're also spending more time than you ever imagined wondering if you just stepped in water or pee.

People ask me a lot how I do it, and I honestly don't know how to answer that question in a neat, concise way, other than to say I just do it.

So far in this series we've talked about my village, and how important support is, and we've gone over the hectic and messy day in the life of me and my kids.

But maybe you're wondering how I do all of that.

Logistically, literally, and emotionally.

The truth is, I don't know.

I guess its sort of like a constantly running check list in my head.

I know I have two little people who cannot dress themselves 100% on their own, so I need to get up earlier than I would if the only person I needed to get ready in the morning were me. Ok, set the alarm for 6. Check.

I know I need to get three people dressed, so I start with the hardest one first, which is Jackson. Lainie is 9 now and can {mostly} dress herself. I know Lainie moves the slowest in the morning though, so she needs to be woken up first. Check.

I know that we have to be out of the house by 7:10 and no later, so I should get as much ready the night before as I can. Lay out their socks, clean underwear and Jackson's outfit because he'll usually let me pick for him. Check.

I know they need to fed, and they can't eat pizza every night, so I plan our meals two weeks in advance and plan accordingly for what will keep for two weeks, what needs to be frozen and what I should just buy later. Check, check.

I know I have two kids who both need to feel special and important and wanted and loved and attended to. I know that Jackson will seek me out when he wants a hug or a kiss or someone to play with, but Lainie will wait for you to come to her so she feels like the love is genuine.

So I seek Lainie out, kiss her face and ask her to read to me.

I know I can't always give them both what they want at the exact same time. Sometimes one of them needs to try to wait a minute and be patient. Because Jackson is younger, Lainie is usually the one who has to be patient. It breaks my heart, but I only have two hands. I try to make it up to her, but I'm sure I fail a lot.

I know that their needs have to come before my own. I know I can't yell and scream even when I am so close to yelling or screaming that its almost unbearable. I know I have to step back and breath for a second, even if that means locking myself in the closet for five minutes while they tear the house apart.

I know that they need to take baths and eat all their veggies and follow through with the things they ask to do outside of school, and always be polite and share as much as possible, but I also know that sometimes being the perfect parent just isn't worth the blood on the floor. Exceptions need to be made, grace needs to be given, and battles have to be carefully chosen.

I know they're going to fight, and I struggle with when and how much to intervene. I struggle with the line between encouraging them to play together and forcing them to just get along and stop fighting.

Sometimes that feels like forcing a square peg into a round hole.

I know the house needs to be clean and the laundry needs to be done, and as badly as I want to go to bed right now, I can't. Sometimes though, I do anyway.

I know they need a roof over their heads and clothes to wear and food to eat, and those things cost money, so I work my ass off whether I like the job I have or not, and I've taken a lot of shit from a lot of petty bosses, and I've had to leave them with family members when they were sick because I could not miss one more day of work or I'd get fired, and I know they don't understand, but I hope someday they will.

And I know that at the end of the day I'm exhausted.

I'm tired and I'm over it, and most of the time the day ends with me sitting on the couch alone, watching TV and its lonely.

I wish I had a partner, I wish I had someone here to just be exhausted with me at night, but I don't, and part of the reason is I'm so hesitant to let my kids get to know someone else, after so long of it being just me and them and occasionally Bill.

I know all of this, and sometimes its too much.

I want to cry or scream or go to bed for a week.

Sometimes I want to walk out the front door and just be by myself for an entire weekend.

But I know that when I drag my tired ass to bed, Jackson will instinctively scoot closer to me in his sleep, and Lainie will be softly breathing beside him, and the bed will be so warm, and I will know that this is my home.

This is where I belong, and these kids are just perfect for me.

They are the very best parts of me, combined with aspects of such wonder and beauty, that I know they couldn't have gotten it from me, and in those moments where it all shines through, I know I didn't make them alone.

Whoever God is, however we got here, I see it in my babies when I slow down and really pay attention.

I know its all worthwhile.

No matter how many times I step in pee.

Things I Need to Remember

Things I need to remember right now:

1. I am going to be ok.

2. WE are going to be ok.

3. I can do this.

4. I've done this, one way or another, for almost 9 years. I can do it for 9 more. And another 9 after that. Whatever it takes.

5. No matter what happens, we'll survive.

6. My kids will be ok without gymnastics lessons or soccer teams if they need to go without those things for right now. I can make up for them with love...and ice cream bribes.

7. I am only one person, doing the job of two. Even if I fuck up, I should be proud of myself for what I still achieve every day.

8. We've come a long way in the last year. We can still go further.

9. Don't give up. Don't believe that there isn't hope, or chance, or fortune or luck, or sheer magic. There is. But it only works if you believe in it.

10. I am going to be ok. We will all be ok. Maybe not right now, but in the end. If things aren't ok, then it's obviously not the end.

Please refer me back to this when I feel like I'm barely treading water.

Monday Momisms: On Feeling Insufficient

I doubt myself a lot when it comes to my kids. 

Am I doing the right things? Am I spending enough time with them? Holding them enough, kissing them enough, reading to them enough, loving and affirming them enough?

The answer is always no.

Their short childhoods are passing by so damn fast, and I feel like every day goes faster than the last until I am in a perpetual fast forward like the movie Click, which made me cry.

I question myself, second guess myself, doubt myself, and generally beat myself up over little, stupid and probably insignificant Mom things.

"Maybe I should have made sure Lainie's socks matched before I sent her off to school instead of letting her wear mismatched ones... Maybe I should have let Jackson play in the tub five minutes longer... Maybe I should've re-read that story for the 10th time... Maybe I should've left them to be raised by gorillas in the jungle, wearing loin cloths and swinging from friggin trees.... I have no idea what I'm doing."

It's endless.

I think self doubt in general is just standard for moms, because we are charged with ensuring that the lives, the future, the mental and emotional stability of other human beings, turns out right.

That's pretty huge.

I really can't think of being asked to do anything huger.

And to think I complain about having to do my boss' job at work all the time. Shit, at least if he turns out to be a stripper or a serial killer in 20 years, no one will blame that on me.

I also think that the environment in which we become moms can make us more or less prone to self doubt. To the negative talk. 

I remember when Jackson was just a wee babe and we were staying with my older sister after I'd split up with Jack's dad, and she seemed to have a problem with the way I did everything with the kids. Jack wasn't on a proper schedule, Lainie shouldn't be required to take naps anymore, Jackson was drinking too many bottles during the day, his eczema was the result of improper care, I shouldn't be bathing the children together, blah blah blah. I remember feeling like I absolutely never did anything right.
At one point I lost it, and said "You know you're not fucking perfect!" to which she replied, in 100% seriousness "No, but I'm pretty damn close."
I cried every single day.

There are times when I do something in a way I wouldn't normally do it, because I feel my sister's judgment and criticism. Her scrutiny. I remember that failure.

My son's aunt recently had a baby, and I had breakfast with them at iHop one Sunday morning when he was only two weeks old. I sat there holding him and feeling like a very in love aunt {even though he isn't technically my nephew}. I looked up at his mom and said "There's nothing you could ever call and confess to me about being a mom to which I will say 'No I can't relate to that at all' or consider you a terrible mother for." 

Obviously I didn't mean she was encouraged to give her baby crack or leave him on a bus with a homeless guy, but I meant those words. 

Moms need love, support, understanding, and to have someone they can call on the bad days and be like

 "Dude, my kids won't stop fighting, my oldest just asked me about the day she was born and I said I stole her from some lady in Target and now she won't stop crying, I set the stove on fire twice and I have no idea where my pants are. I'm pretty sure me and Britney Spears would have a lot in common right now."
We shouldn't feel afraid of judgment and ridicule or someone else's falls sense of superiority just because we're human and we make mistakes.
Being a mother doesn't make you infallible. It makes you fat, tired and slightly more psychotic.
And if anything, it makes you a hell of a lot more human than you were before you took this job. I mean, if it was meant to make you perfect then I doubt it would start out with drooling, vomiting and the acquisition of hemorrhoids.

If there is one thing I can tell you honestly about being a mom, it's that you're going to fuck up. You're going to make huge mistakes, even if you don't think so now, you will find out at some point in your child's life that you in fact didn't know everything. You will have days, weeks or months where you feel like you are the most unqualified person for this job in the whole history of ever, and you can't believe anyone left you in charge of little kids.
But you will soldier on.
You will hike up the yoga pants you've been wearing for 3 days and roll up the sleeves on the boob-stainy sweater you got at Ross 10 + years ago, and you'll do the work. You won't give up, you will get through it, and even on your darkest mommy-ing days, your kids could switch gears at any moment and melt your heart like they know they can.

And as long as you don't go careening through the neighborhood in your minivan on a field trip to the park afterwards, no one said you can't have a little hard liquor at snack time.

Just kidding.

Sort of. 

“Would it be fair to say that as a parent, you’ve felt confused from time to time, possibly overwhelmed on occasion, even though you’re a wonderful mother? I know there have been many moments as a parent where I’ve felt I’ve made huge mistakes - mistakes that are huge. And I’ve had to admit them to myself. My husband. Those moments that every parent I’ve ever spoken to has - moments when you’ve felt the task is so unbelievably challenging that you feel retarded, disabled in some way. Moments when you feel everyone has the key but you.” -I Am Sam

What No One Told Me About Motherhood

"I just peed on you. Haha, no big deal, right?"

When you are pregnant, people-and by people I mean crazy people, come out of the wood work like Zombies during the Apocalypse to give you advice on parenting.  Most of what they tell you is complete bullshit. Things like "Oh if you let your baby sleep in a yellow room they'll go insane" or "Immunizations are good for children" Occasionally they drop a little nugget of knowledge that may at some point be actually useful, like "Don't let your kids eat fire." And you're like 'Oh, thank you random crazy fucking stranger, I will definitely keep that in mind" 

But! There are so many things that no one tells you, not even the people you think you can count on for sound parenting advice like your pediatrician, your mother, an older sister who's had children, etc. There are just some secrets to motherhood that are not bestowed upon you until that beautiful little human rips its way out of your baby maker, and forever changes your life.

Things like....

You don't need a crib until the kid is sleeping through the night. Yep. You know that beautiful, cherry wood crib with the super cutsie bumper and blankies and the ability to adjust the mattress to like 9 million heights, that cost you over a thousand dollars? Don't need it. Co-Sleeping makes your life so much easier until your kids starts legitimately sleeping through the night, at which point something much cheaper and toddler friendly is fine, cuz more than likely, your kid is almost 1 if not 1 already.

You will never use the bathroom by yourself again. Apparently once you become a parent you lose even the most basic of human rights, and are instantly reverted to the rights most prisoners in this country can expect on a good day. You get a toilet, but you don't get to use it alone. Ever. And I know, there is some single, childless asshole out there reading this going "Just lock the door, problem solved, duh." Well, first of all, single childless asshole, fuck you. You don't have kids, your life still rules. Second of all, have you ever tried to take a piss with someone sitting outside the door screaming, crying like they're being eaten alive by a velociraptor and banging on the door? No? Well now try shitting while that's going on. Not. Fucking. Pleasant. 

Welcome to Judgment Town, Population: Every Asshole in the World. Judgment is something you can come to expect from just about everyone. Every woman you meet will have an opinion about how you raise your children-STARTING WITH PREGNANCY. Yes, didn't you know, you can be pregnant wrong? You can do it wrong. That's right. And the judgment fest is not limited to women who have children, it is open to pretty much any creature with a vagina who thinks they know something about kids. Guess what? They don't know shit about your kid, and unless you're Britney Spears or Courtney Love, you're probably doing ok, so tell 'em to go suck it.

Someone Will Always Be Touching You, and their hands will never be clean. There will constantly be some body part belonging to a small child touching some part of your body at. all. times. When you sleep, your child will get into your bed and subsequently throw elbows, knees, hands and even their large bulbous heads all over you. All night long. Any time you are eating or drinking anything that is hot, and could potentially scald your child, they not only wish you touch you, but be ALL UP IN YOUR FACE and on your body, and generally in any small space between you and your scalding hot food item, until they burn themselves. Then everyone looks at you like you're the asshole. 

Say Goodbye to the Hours Between 4 and 8 p.m. Otherwise known in any house that contains children as The Witching Hour. These are the hours when your children basically become tiny little demons with sticky hands who demand shit and throw things, and will not for the LOVE OF GOD GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE KITCHEN WHILE YOU'RE COOKING BEFORE THEY KNOCK SOMETHING OVER AND BURN THEMSELVES. You will never want to have a friend stop by after work during these hours. You will not be able to accept phone calls, respond to text messages or have any other contact with the outside world during this time, or your demon children will burn the house down, and eat your fucking soul. Seriously. 

Motherhood is Really Fucking Wet. All. The. Time. And it starts with pregnancy. Your nose is stuffy, but now you drool in your sleep, you sweat like a Russian playing field hockey in Phoenix, you pee constantly, sometimes on yourself or others, and you cry uncontrollably. Plus, there is probably some kind of wet food stain on you, somewhere that you can't see because your belly is massive. When you're in labor, there are so many kinds of wetness that occur, I will not for the sake of all that is good and holy in the world list them. Once you are a new mommy, your boobs leak, you have night sweats, you're still fucking drooling, you're bleeding and crying even harder than you did before. Plus, at some point, this creature will vomit all over you. Probably in public. And it never gets better. I have a 3 year old. I don't know how many times I touch the back of my thigh, or my left eyebrow, only to discover a mashed up, half chewed piece of food from my son, somehow stuck there. And of course, it's wet. I walk across my hardwood floors to find stepped on grapes under my bare feet that my son stomped on during "Jedi Time" or a puddle of something you hope to God is water. The wetness is everywhere. It never goes away. 

Meet Your New Best Friends: Shame and Guilt. They're snobby bitches too who come over to play way too often. Didn't pack your kid a lunch for the field trip cuz you forgot? Meet guilt. Show up 20 minutes late for your parent teacher conference in stained yoga pants with your 3 year old in tow because life just sucks like that sometimes? Meet shame. Have 2-or 6 glasses of wine with dinner because you're ready to furking snap? Meet shame AND guilt. Send the kids to bed without a bath because it's been the longest day ever, you have 8 million more things to do and you're already on the verge of tears? Meet shame again. It never stops. 

The important thing is that you love your kids, like I love my kids. This job is never easy, and sometimes I wonder if I was truly cut out for it. But my kids are my world, even if at the end of the day that means I live in a much more messy, sticky, wet, loud, chaotic, temper tantrumy, wine filled world, fine by me. 

I just wish someone would have warned me. 

 

Single Mothers Have Gills

"I feel like I can't keep my head above water right now. I'm so overwhelmed, I can't get a breath." "Your breath will come. Don't worry. You're a single mother. You have fucking gills." -The Roomie

I just want to take a moment to rant a bit about.....everything. Before I begin this rant, I want to put a disclaimer out that I love my children. I love being a mother, and most of the time, I am pretty damn good at it. I would not trade my kids for all the stars in the sky, all the tea in China or anything else in the world. This is not about how much I love them, this about me being human, and having limits.

I am a single mother. Everyone knows that. I have been a single mother pretty much ever since I had Tiny, because The Jedi's dad was kind of always useless from the moment we found out I was expecting. So, Tiny being almost 8, that means for 8 years I have been raising kids by myself. Take a moment and try to wrap your head around that. 8 years. Being a single mom is hard. It is hard in ways I never imagined it could be hard. It's hard to the point that I sometimes believe it might be completely impossible to do it and come out even moderately sane.

Everything is on you. Everything. If I don't go to the grocery store on time, and get enough food for the week, we don't have dinner and we're left with mac and cheese or take out which I cannot afford and makes me feel like a shitty mom for feeding my kids CRAP. If I don't do the laundry, we all smell like dirty clothes and feet. If I don't make enough money for all 3 of us to survive, we live without something, like power or, oh I don't know, a HOUSE. If I don't wake up on time in the morning we're ALL late for school, preschool, work, etc. If I don't clean the house looks like a crack den. And the list goes on. Baths, bedtime stories, teeth brushing, pajama putting on, room organizing, question answering, playtime, homework help, it NEVER ENDS.

You are completely alone in your life of craziness. Not only is there no one else to pick up the slack or help out if you get sick or take on just some of the responsibility, but you drive around all day and have no one to talk to. I mean you have friends, sure, but no one to talk to about the daily life stuff. What will we have for dinner, what should we do with the kids this weekend, can you pick up some wine and sour cream at the store? Nope. You have those conversations by yourself.

At the end of the day, it's just you. For those of you that have kids, do you know those days where everything just goes so fucking wrong, it's almost retarded, and the kids won't stop crying and asking for stuff, and you're bone tired, and you can't catch a break, and all you want is to put the kids to bed so you can have some peace and quiet? Yeah, I have those too. But then you put the kids to bed, flop on the couch, and you're alone. No one to flop down with and sigh, and say "Oh my God, what a day. What do you wanna watch on T.V.?" No one to look over at and laugh with because neither of you can believe you survived the day, or cry to because you're overwhelmed and exhausted and all you want is a bath, some Starbucks and a freaking hug. You can call a friend on the phone, sure, but most of them don't get it. They either don't have kids or they have a husband or wife so they will never understand the overwhelming isolation that can come from doing this all by yourself.

And sometimes all you want is to have someone to call who gets it who will say "Awwww honey, I'm so sorry. I totally understand. What do you want from Starbucks, I'm coming over!" And they come hug you, and listen to you, and dispense tissues like magic, and wait with you until you're laughing at how silly it all is, and you remember how blessed you are to have the kids you have, husband/partner/involved other parent or not.

I don't mean to whine, I don't. But this shit gets hard. It gets exhausting and sometimes all you want is for someone to come through, and listen and be there, and make you feel like you're not in it all alone. Like in some small way, you are part of a team. You're in this together. Maybe someday I will have that, or maybe I will live the next 15 years as a single parent, and if that happened, I know I'd survive. I think my friends would just see me cry a lot more than they would like to, and I might seem like a whiny little bitch more than I would like to, but that's life. You do what you gotta do to survive. And sometimes, that's calling a friend, and crying it out.

Thank you to my friends that always answer your phone, and come over with coffee and hugs and love whenever you can, and are always there when I feel like my head is being held under water. Thank you for being there when it sucks, and laughing with me when it's good, and never telling me "I told you so" or "You chose to have these kids, what do you expect?" and for never judging me at all. I love you all more than bacon.