My Adventures as a Single Mom, Day One

Hubby is in India for a 10-day business trip, so I am single-mom’in it.  We survived Day 1, but it was not uneventful. 

What will I be doing while my spouse is gone?  Funny you should ask.  The answer, my friend, is laundry.  Lots and lots of laundry.   

We woke up one day last week to discover that, at some point, our washer must have leaked/overflowed/vomited water all over our mudroom floor.  We figured I had overloaded it in an overzealous attempt to getdonefaster!  But when we returned from Thanksgiving and started a load of laundry, we again found ourselves swimming in what was formerly known as our laundry room.  We scheduled a service appointment for two days later, which should have been Wednesday.  Sure enough, the guy-who-sits-at-the-phone-with-the-sassy-headset called and had to reschedule . . . for December 8.  I panicked! gently explained that we are a family of 5, three of whom are young boys, and I cannot wait that long to do laundry.  He acquiesced and agreed to send someone on December 2, which is today. 

My washer is now fixed, which is a blessing in disguise.  I did two loads of laundry at my neighbor’s house on Wednesday.  (But don’t tell her because she doesn’t know.)  (Okay, that’s a joke.  She knows.  She knows NOW at least . . . )  But now I have A LOT of laundry to do, including a giant load of beach towels that need to be washed because we used them to sop up the standing water in our mudroom.  The irony is not lost on me. 

In other news, Medium lost a tooth today.  I have a hard enough time remembering to move our Elf, Neeney.  (That’s right – his name is Neeney Sweeney.)  Countless times I’ve had to make up a reason why Neeney is in the same place he was yesterday, even though he is supposed to report back to Santa each night and reappear in a different spot.  Perhaps he was just too tired from all the fun and decided to stay last night.  Or maybe he just really likes that spot, so he visited Santa and then returned to the same place.  Or maybe you were bad, bad little boys.  The point?  I sometimes forget to move Neeney and now I have the extra responsibility of remembering to be the Tooth Fairy too?

Thhhhhhh . . . 

I have also concluded that I should have gone to Target today.  Today was the first day this week I have NOT been to Target.  I went Monday because . . . well, just because.  Tuesday I went to look for a toy I had seen on Monday, price-checked at other retailers, and decided I needed to purchase at Target.  Wednesday I went to purchase all the little travel-size accoutrements Hubby needed for his trip but neglected to tell me about when I was there on Tuesday.  Thursday we went as a family to kill time until bedtime to purchase gifts for our Trim-a-Tree at church and for a neighborhood charity.  IF I had gone this afternoon, I may have avoided the embarrassing incident in which one of my children had to apologize for breaking a tail light. 

The boys were playing in the front yard with a friend while I sat on the front step and engaged in a grown-up phone conversation with a girlfriend.  We live on a street that doesn’t get much thru-traffic, so it’s not uncommon for the boys to play catch in the street.  One of my boys (betcha can’t guess which one!) was throwing a Matchbox car up into the air.  This, of course, is not advisable, wise, or what God intended when He invented Matchbox cars.  Lo and behold, he threw the car up into the air, his aim was off, and it hit the tail light of my neighbor’s parents’ car, which was parked in front of their house.  I didn’t know how hard it hit until Medium came running up the yard and cried, “I’m in big trouble!”  He apologized to the owner, admitted he had made a bad decision, and shook hands, and I said we would pay for the damage. 

Surprisingly enough, this is not the first time we’ve found ourselves in a situation such as this. 

Day One: FAIL.