Friday, November 6, 2009

God Bless single parents

To all you single parents out there: you have my support and sympathy. Lately Mark has been working very long hours and I have been on kid duty by myself.

They totally know when they outnumber me, and they divide and conquer. And purposefully ignore everything I ask them to do because I can only chase one of them around the house at a time.

For example, last night was "tubby night". We really should bathe them nightly, as they are very stinky and unhygenic, but I don't have the mental strength to survive this nightly ritual alone.

I figured it would be easier & quicker to tub them together, which I haven't done since Kaylee pointed out that Brady has a mushroom atop his privates. Man oh man was I wrong. I made them swear that they wouldn't yell or splash. They promised. Not so much.

My first challenge was chasing one or the other to get them to take their clothes off. As previously mentioned, they know there's only one of me, but two of them. So that was a needless 10 minute ordeal to get them naked.

Then once in the tub, they proceeded to splash, scream, yell, fight, etc all the while knowing that I could only beat one of them at a time. And that was fine with them. Getting them out was interesting too. It was a conundrum, really. They waited until all the water drained, then sat there complaining about how cold they were, yet they wouldn't let me dry them off.

I explained that they couldn't just sit there with their towels, that they actually had to use them to remove the water, but it was like talking to a fence post. Another 10 minutes of my life I won't ever get back.

This morning I also had to get them ready on my own, for the most part, since Mark had a 7:15 am meeting. Let's just say that things didn't go much better this morning than they did last night.

Single parents have my support and sympathy. While this is an occasional experience for me, it's a daily struggle for them. That's why god invented coffee for the morning and booze for after you get the kids in bed. Amen.