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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Why I Slept for 4 Hours on Saturday Afternoon

Last week my husband was out of town. Big deal. People's spouses travel all the time for work. It shouldn't be a problem, right? Except that it was for me. My husband rarely travels. I can count on one hand the number of times he has traveled since we were married. One of those times, I asked my mom to come up from Chicago since my older son (OS) was a baby and the thought of taking care of a newborn on my own for a whole week was just daunting.

I felt like I had to put on a brave face. Sure I can "man" the fort so to speak. It would even be fun. Growing up I remember kids getting to have movie night in pjs with sleeping bags or everyone in the family going through their individual favorite fast food place or a combination of both when a parent was out of town. As a kid, I thought that must be the best treat ever. As a parent whose husband was just out of town for the week I now know what that was about: survival. You don't have to cook dinner, you get peace and quiet when they watch a movie, and you don't have to argue over pjs or bedtime since you need to wear the pjs to watch the movie and the kids conk out during it!

Back to A. Elliot the wimp. Honestly, I'm embarrassed to say it, but the week was pretty hard for me. We normally are not, knock on wood, an accident prone family. However, during this short week, alright let's be honest here, 4 days, OS hurt his thumb in the door and the cats had rumbling tummies. A few nights later there was a lot of laughing and a crash followed by lots of crying. My younger son (YS) fell off his brother's bed after lights out and instantly developed a goose egg with a scratch down the center. This involved another phone call to my dad the doctor although I couldn't get a hold of him because he was at work. My mother who is a nurse told me to make sure that YS wasn't acting drowsy. Seeing as it was already passed YS's bedtime, he was already drowsy to start with so I took to poking him every half hour after I separated the boys and had YS sleep in the guest room for the rest of the evening. In the midst of all of this, I also found out we needed a new roof on our sunroom.

Alright, so a lot going on but by no means a crisis. Like I said before, normally we don't have accidents, much less two in a span of a few days and normally we are well stocked on catfood. Oh yeah, normally we don't have to replace a roof either! It also didn't help that it was hard to get in touch with my husband particularly about issues like the roof. While the Big Giraffe and I have always trusted the other's decisions (I bought our house without the Big Giraffe even seeing it), it doesn't mean that this was my first choice.

I read a really good post by Ms. Chicky a few days ago about the difference between loving your child and liking your child. I could totally relate. I think I would be hard-pressed to find a parent who couldn't. By the end of the week the first day, I was starting to feel just like she had described. Not that I don't feel like that at other times, like perhaps this evening after telling my kids yet again to stop throwing things, screaming, and poking each other. I think though that the combination of solo parenting, complete disruption of gym schedule since I couldn't go first thing in the morning, lack of sleep (did I mention that every night BG was gone at least one of them was up in the middle of the night and that never happens when he's at home) and the fact that I felt like I couldn't even get five minutes to myself during the day without some sort of interruption was just getting to me. Yeah, I know; throw me a pity party. I'm a wimp. I admit it. I was disappointed with myself too.

I do think next time I'll be better prepared. First of all, it won't be so new. Second, I'll make sure I have cat food. On a more serious note, I think I went into it with the expectation that I would just keep things running the way they always do. Except that it wasn't the way things always were for me, and so I was the one who ended up having a hard time adjusting. I get now why the fun things happened during my friends' parents' trips. I think it's a way of saying that the parent at home knows that the routine is going to be disrupted so let's just make it work for us and have fun. Sure, I'll cook some dinners at the beginning like usual, but I'll also do that drive thru night or movie night or better yet find someone in the babysitting co-op to watch my kids for the evening (in other words handle the bedtime rituals) so I can go grab a cup of coffee in a bookstore by myself. I took a 4 hour nap on Saturday while the Big Giraffe and the boys spent some quality time together.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Loss of routine is disruptive.

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posted by Alex Elliot @ 6:36 PM   4 comments
4 Comments:

  • At 10/28/2008 9:15 PM, Blogger Whirlwind said…

    As someone whose routine is irregular and gets disrupted often (take now- Husband has been on nights for three weeks with three more weeks to go) I can say - you do what you need to do to survive! And the sleeping htne - totally normal. My girls, even though it's common for Husband to work nights every few weeks, always wake when he's on nights. May not be the same kid, but most nights he's working - someone's waking.

    Sorry to hear you had a rough time.

     

  • At 10/28/2008 10:12 PM, Blogger Mayberry said…

    I'm glad you got that nap! You deserved it!

     

  • At 10/29/2008 12:09 AM, Blogger Heather said…

    I sometimes wonder how single parents do it all...but then I sometimes wonder how I do things too.

     

  • At 10/30/2008 9:16 PM, Blogger Tracee said…

    such sympathy I have for single mothers.

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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