A Reason to Blog

I imagine I've run my readers away by not having a post in weeks, so be it. I'm going to write anyway since I'm finally feeling a reason to write.

I've been a single parent for the last week, husband traveling, saving money for the company by spending the weekend in Europe... Not a problem, I can handle it. I used to stay at home full time without help, I know I can handle a few weeks without help in the evening. Well, tonight is the night that has made me doubt whether I can handle this mom thing at all. Bless those true single mom's out there. I really don't know how they manage.

Around dinner time Saturday night I had had enough of the endless fighting. I offered pizza as the main course tonight with a fancy side of cantaloupe, who wouldn't love the lack of green vegetable, right? I was instead greeted with tears over a new found hate of pizza. Not to mention the constant request for a veggie burger instead, I was just about over the top. I had reached my limit of unhappy children and I was not about to accommodate any requests for another option. It was going to be another night of putting the kids to bed hungry- they will survive.

After dinner I suggested that if the girls took a quick shower without fighting and tattling, then I would let them watch a movie we picked up from the library. Midway through the shower they started fighting, so that was it, no movie allowed. They started crying, but I held firm, sorry, no movie tonight. They wailed while putting on their pj's, I chose to vacuum while they got dressed in effort to drown out the tears. Then while the dirt was being removed from carpets, they decided to become friends instead. They got together and discussed that if they were sickly sweet to each other, which I so often praise, then maybe I would change my mind. I was so enjoying hearing them working as a team that I decided to finish vacuuming the upstairs, and heck, if time allowed, I would even vacuum a staircase or two.

Briefly turning off the vacuum to swiffer the hardwood, my oldest daughter came in to announce that Audrey was putting toothpaste into the baby's hair. I scolded her tattling, then continued to vacuum. I finished the room I was working on then headed off to see the mess in the baby's hair (trying to make it seem like I was heading that way anyway, rather than a result of tattling). Wow, was it ever a mess. Audrey had managed to squeeze out the majority of the tube all over the freshly showered baby. At this point no amount of vacuuming was going to drown out the mess. I lost my mind. I was truly shocked over the white creamy paste and just how much is still available from a tube that has been around for 6 months. Rather than harming my child, which was what my mind was telling me to do, I instead sent her straight to bed, after she changed into fresh toothpaste free pj's.

Wow I could use a husband right about now, because a walk with the dog on this warm spring night sounds like more fun than cleaning the kitchen, which is another story, but trust me, don't leave my three alone at the table for ten minutes while chatting out front with a neighbor when really, they hate pizza these days.