Last night it became glaringly obvious to me how much more difficult it is to parent on your own. The night started off like any other night. We had dinner, we played, we got in jammies, read our stories, and were off to bed. At four o’clock in the morning I woke to find my son coughing and throwing up all over not only his bed but mine too. Immediately I took him in my arms rocked him and ventured back upstairs to clean him up. Now comes the tricky part. When you are married you both can pitch in when you have a sick baby. One of you can be there to comfort your child while the other one rushes around to get everything cleaned up and taken care of. When you’re single, no such luck. You’ve got to figure it all out on your own. It is one of those moments you wish there were about three of you running around to help out. One to clean up the mess, one to cuddle the baby, and one to run to the store because you’ve realized you don’t have any coke or saltines to settle his little tummy.
How do you possibly manage to do it all when there is only one of you to take care of the situation? But, somehow as single parents, we figure it out. Why? Because we have no other choice. There’s no one else to do it for you. So you get to work cleaning up the baby, since he is the number one priority. Then you move on to taking care of all of the bedding and getting it into the machine before the smell does everyone in. Oh, and don’t forget to get new bedding on so they have somewhere to sleep when you have finally finished cleaning everything! Dragging everyone to the store at four in the morning, well maybe not such a good idea. That will have to wait until morning. And finally, back to rocking your baby back to sleep so that maybe, just maybe you can get a few more hours of shut eye. Only to wake up and start all over again. Being a single mom is a piece of cake! Anyone can do that right?