I know I’ve complained about this before, but when E-spouse is on the road, which would be almost every other week, I often feel that I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth. And my teeth don’t have skin. What the hell does that mean anyway?
I think single parents are the true gods and goddesses among us. As a part-time single Mom, I cannot imagine what would be lost in the cracks of the floorboards if this was a full-time gig.
Two weeks ago, I missed my daughter’s speech evaluation review. The one that had been scheduled a month previously. The one I’d told E to write down on his palm pilot, although I then neglected to write it on MY calendar. So, E, who was in Atlanta, knew about the appointment, but I, who was at home, and scheduled to attend with my girl’s speech therapist and teacher, totally forgot.
Today, I sent the same neglected child to school with greasy hair and wearing both a worn T-shirt and a large Dora Band-Aid across her nose so she couldn’t pick at a scab. Only after she was gone did I notice that my calender sported the words “School Portrait Day.” Damn. I guess that’s what she normally looks like, though. If I’d dolled her up, the photo wouldn’t reflect reality. When I picked her up from school, the Band-Aid was missing. I asked if she’d taken it off for the photo. “No,” she said. “It fell off after the photo. ” Damn again.
To top it off, I just had to clear a toilet bowl full of urine-soaked toilet paper. My son, who has finally learned to wipe himself, has not learned frugality with the wipage materials.
In our family, toilet clogs are E-spouse’s job. After all, he has an Ivy League degree in the big E. As in Engineering. I still don’t understand how he got it. The man can outmath everyone I know. He actuallyLOVES algebra, trigonometry, and other complex mathematical equations. But, please don’t ask him to build a bridge. Or load the dishwasher in an organized manner. Or remember how to drive somewhere he’s been only three or four times. But, thank you Dartmouth, he can use a plunger.
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See, it just makes me want to go home and impregnate my wife…oh, wait, no….
As for the dishwasher thing…I truly believe that no man can load the dishwasher to the demanding specifications of the female sex.
Hubby is the official plumber as well. We have a toilet in this new home that just LOVES to get clogged - and that’s just not my job to fix it. Not sure what I would do if it happens when he’s gone.
What is it with the dishwasher? E will load it, then I’ll come in and rearrange and add like ten more items. And he’ll say, “Wow, how did you do that?”
My DH can load the diswasher to the max - way better than me. AND he can unclog the toilet. However, cleaning the toilet (or poop from the bathtub) is out of the question.
I do sympathize with your interaction with your son’s bodily functions. YUCK!
Thanks for bringing the book by. I’d be happy to pay you back for cleaning the clothes my puppy soiled. Perhaps a few beers would do the trick?
ES went to Dartmouth?
Genuine just talked about children and projectile vomit, yesterday at work a co-worker said that her son was projectile vomiting, and now kids are tying up toys and clogging up toilets… I am making notes of all these things, that way whenever I read the sweet things that your kids say, I can remind myself that sometimes they clog toilets and projectile vomit and right now I am not ready for either, so I will just continue to live vicariously through the stories that the many mommy and daddy bloggers post.
Was that the longest sentence ever written in the history of time. OMW.
Every time I give praise to a single parent they tell me that “you do what you have to do.” Yet, if give the same set of circumstances, I’m pretty certain the world would suck me up like cheeries to a mini-vac. Pregnancy eats braincells. You aren’t expected to remember anything. I’m not really certain how anyone does. My children aren’t school age yet. I really want to find a school that gives reminder calls (like dr’s offices) for important events like picture days and appointments. Such a thing should really exist. Such a job should really exist. They should creat this job. It would be beneficial to both the economy and me.
Can you imagine how nice it would be, “HI, this is Patty from the Bean’s school and I’m just calling to remind you that tomorrow is picture day. Or Hi this is Patty at the Bean’s school and I’m just calling to remind you that you have a three o’clock appointment with Mr. Knotts.”
And that is all that person would do… all-day-long.
As a single parent (although thankfully, only for one more year), I have to say that it’s just hellacious at times. Like, this last week…what a nightmare. Monday night, girl scouts; Tuesday night, soccer; Thursday night, arts and cats at the school. Then Wednesday Ariana got sick and barfed three times. And then had diarrhea in her bed…poor thing thought she had gas, and BOOM! That was a blast to clean up in the early morning hours. And she had to come to school with me on Thursday because…WELL, I’m a single parent, and their father is unreliable. Yay. Sick child at school while I teach! By the time we hit Friday and drove to Alex’s for the weekend, I was ready to toss him two kids and walk back out the door, head to a bar, and start draining a few. I wouldn’t trade my kids for the world, but man is it a lot easier when Alex is around. I never had help when I was still married to their father, so I guess until my fiance came along, I had no idea what it was like to NOT be a single parent.
Alex likes math a hell of a lot too. He grooves into his finance classes in his MBA program because of the math….brrrrr. I think that’s a sickness.