Empty Bed, Full Heart- A Single Mother's Journey

This morning, I had a realization. Like most epiphanies of value, it came to me while I was in the shower. My little boy was playing in the living room while I was quickly rinsing off the night's cobwebs, and I heard a 'thump' and his tearful voice cry out. He rushed into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. "Owie, mama!" he hiccuped and pointed at his knee. I noticed it was red, but not bruised and knelt down gently next to him and kissed it. "Ouch, baby." I said. "Are you ok?" He looked up at my face, gave me a sweet smile and darted back out to play. I often think to myself how silly and endearing it is that first aid for a child is so simple. He didn't need a band-aid or an ice pack. Just a kiss and a little bit of empathy and he was as good as new. Back to the blocks, as though nothing had happened at all. So why even interrupt his play for such a minor bump? Normally, I attribute this kind of thing to a mother's ...

How cliched, I know. When I was young, I was not fussy about relationships. I was low maintenance if there ever was such a thing, in part because of my fierce independent (read: stubborn) streak and a complete aversion to frivolity. I was never the girl who got highlights in her hair and spent hours on clothes and makeup each morning. I shopped at thrift stores and went to school with my hair wet 50% of the time. My requirements for "boyfriend" material were that they hold my hand sometimes and be smart enough to talk to for hours on end. I didn't seek out the best looking, I didn't expect gifts or showering, I understood not being top priority and I didn't need someone to  emotionally support me. I was a tough chick who could take care of herself, thank you very much. It should come as no surprise then, that I married a man who allowed me to take care of everything in our lives. My teenage self would have loved that, being responsible for the house, the bills,...

A few days ago, I went to a movie with an acquaintance and afterward, we decided mutually that we should get to know each other better, which, considering my lack of an active social circle, can't possibly be a bad thing. (Shut up, anxiety. I'm trying to knock those walls down. ) We were exchanging questions and he said, "You'll have to tell me about [your son] sometime." A few moments later he added, "...and your girls. They clearly have your heart." That first sentence, blinking bright against the black on my iPhone struck me so profoundly. It's a simple request. "Tell me about your son." The innocuous reason he asked that question was simply because he knows that my son is important to me and wants to know more about the people I care about. However, when I read it, it struck me how I would seriously answer what my children truly mean to me and how I would honestly describe them. Not in the funny things they do, or the sweet things th...

It's Christmas in July. Actually, it is BETTER than Christmas in July. It is 4th of July week in my home town, which does 4th of July like New Orleans does Mardi Gras. These are the top reasons why my city is the best city to be in on Independence Day. (Take that, Washington D.C.) 1) We can blow fireworks off in town.  You may think this sounds like a safety concern and you would be right. You might also think this causes our city to look like the back bathroom at a seedy bar on a Sunday morning. You would also be right about that. It is, quite frankly, the worst after party clean up there is. However, the party itself is totally worth it. So while you are in your town parked in a crowded public arena to watch fireworks purchased by the city, I'll be parked on the street at my parents' house hoping that an empty round doesn't land on my car while watching close friends and family almost burn their fingers off with explosives. If you don't think that's awesom...

....of potty training. At Baby Boy's second birthday (I guess that would mean he isn't a baby anymore. Pardon me while I dissolve into a puddle of tears.) he received a pack of big boy undies from my parents. So far, the biggest challenge in the Potty Training of Boy Child is calling his underwear "undies" and not "panties". He has two older sisters and the vocabulary is a much harder habit to break than I anticipated. About a week after his birthday, I decided to do what I did with my oldest daughter when I potty trained her. That is to say, I put him in his panties, er, undies, and just took him to the bathroom frequently and boy, did that ever NOT WORK AT ALL. We went through all 8 pairs of underwear by noon. So, as you might imagine, I was not feeling very optimistic that he was ready for bathroom independence. At the beginning of this week, my friend-who-shares-my-namesake called me, ecstatic, because her son who is a few weeks older than Baby Bo...

I made a huge mistake today. It all started on Tuesday evening. I went to the gym because, HALLELUJAH! I actually got off of work in time to go to the gym for once- and I even went with another person. Exercise and socializing - yay, me!Afterwards, on my way to pick up my little man, I got a text from my mom and dad. "Don't pick up H at daycare, we have him." At this point, I should've gone home and made my parents drop him off when they were done. But instead, I met them at the gates of hell, er, Walmart*, and while I was there, lo and behold, I discovered that Coke was on sale. I don't, as a rule, buy pop, because if I buy pop, my kids drink it and then I hate myself for letting my kids ingest garbage. But on Tuesday, since it was on sale and Walmart preys on its victims like sharks in a pool of bloody limbs, I bought JUST ONE case. I put the Coke on the ledge in the garage when I got home. That way I'm less likely to drink it mindlessly 6 cans at a tim...

Recently, I was reading up on my Facebook posts (I've been trying, with moderate success, to cut back on the time I waste, er, spend on social media) and a young friend of mine posted this beautiful post about how "what you focus on is what your life becomes" and "attitude is everything" and "the world is what you make of it". I've become somewhat of a cynic is my curmudgeonly age of 31, because when I read (and inevitably repost) those "inspirational" messages, I sometimes find myself laughing so hard I snort. This friend graduated college three years ago and just finished her first year teaching English to high school students. She is single and carefree with a dog who is "just like" her child, a very active social life, and about a zillion friends who like every time she posts a workout photo or a #Shakeology advertisement. And the thing is, I remember being her. I remember being young and not having worries, at least ...

Full disclosure here: When I was little, I was the girl who spent all day Saturday locked in her room reading. I actually got in trouble at school for reading when I was supposed to be paying attention to the teacher.  I would smell books. New books. Old books. I'd open the volumes and inhale the scent like it was fresh pine. I would spend hours of the day roaming Barnes and Noble, picking books off the shelves and reading their covers, rifling through classics, reading beginning chapters to decide if I should buy the book or not. Since I've become a mom, my reading time has been significantly cut down. To give you some perspective on how much time it takes to be a parent, I mowed down War and Peace while I was working full time and student teaching;but after my eldest was born, I was lucky to make it through a recipe without being interrupted. It goes without saying (but apparently I'm going to say it anyway) that I miss reading immensely. So I've tried to pick it up...

I'm a single gal. So even though I'm about as emotionally available as an avocado, I do have a dating profile on both Match.com and eHarmony.com. Occasionally, my brain has said, "I think you are ready to jump back into the dating pool!" and I end up wasting $100 on 6 months of service and going on exactly zero dates. However, I browse around, like a kid in the produce aisle, looking for something that might be moderately appealing and friends, I'm here to tell you that you can do better. Come on, guys. Your profiles are awful. I may not want to date right now, but I can tell you what makes me think you are interesting and what makes me not want to touch you with a ten foot pole. So, from me to you, here are some tips on getting dates (and possibly even finding true love). * Feel free to bookmark this and take notes. 1) The Picture : I'm going to drop a hard truth bomb on you right now, fellas. She wants to see what you look like. What you really look ...

Mother's Day was this Sunday and it was a hard one. My beautiful little girl brought home a lovely gift that she made for me at school, along with one that her new step mom helped her make. While it was very nice of step mom to do that, my raw emotions couldn't quite process it in a healthy way, so I'm still not sure what exactly to think. What was more painful, though, was the Mother's Day gift from school. It was a place mat with my daughter's handprints on it and it had little "facts" about her "mommy". Every year, I get something like this that makes me feel special and loved in a way that no one else can be, because no one else gets the privilege of being her mommy. My little six year old is the sweetest girl on the planet, and it is to her credit that, not wanting her step mom to feel left out, there in her backpack was a second place mat for step mom, complete with the "facts" about "my mommy". My Mother's Day w...

Dear Person in Charge of Important Things, Hey you. The middle-age white male with the $2,000 suit. You're probably a CEO or lawyer or tobacco exec who brings in more money when he sneezes than I do all year. You've worked hard your whole life and you don't think the middle class has it so bad. All they'd have to do is work hard, like you did, and they can be rich, too! It's the American Dream, right up there with going to the moon and all day passes to Disney World. I am writing to inform you that, no, dear possibly-an-oil-tycoon, my middle class life isn't as charmed as you like to think. I'd like to break it down for you, in terms that you can understand (monetary ones) to try to show you what the reality of a middle class income living the American Dream really looks like. I'm a single mom, so I have one income, and I have three lovely children. I make approximately $40k a year as a teacher, which is awesome because I have the summers off, righ...

One of my long term goals in life has always been to live debt free. My parents raised me to be a good steward of my money and after a lot of hard work, working almost full time while student teaching, and putting my teaching career on hold for a few years while I had a baby and created a financial foundation for my family (alliteration BONUS points!), I was able to make that a reality. At age 25, my student loans were paid off and the only piece of debt my family had was the mortgage on our house. No hospital bills. No credit cards. No retainers. Then, the divorce happened. I credit my ability to stay afloat amidst the sea of lawyer's fees and doctor's bills in small part to the nest egg that was burned through at mach speed; I credit a slightly bigger part to my painstakingly shiny credit score, and the biggest part to my parents' financial support. As someone to whom financial independence is right up there with oxygen and a well-rounded diet, this last part was a par...

The above is something my 6 year old frequently says when she's joking about forgetting something. It's cute and endearing and I love her little voice when she says it and laughs at herself. I find myself slightly less entertaining when I am "losing my mind". "What do you mean 'losing your mind'?", you may be asking yourself. Take a seat on the rug, dear reader. It's story time. Last night was the girls' first night back home for the week. After feeding them a healthy dinner of Little Caesar's, root beer, and potato chips (I get one crappy meal each week and I took it early this time), I started the massive undertaking that is bedtime. At one point, my 6 year old remembered that she had something in the car that she needed. I can't remember what it was. Cut me some slack, I'm losing my mind, remember? Anyway, I ran into the garage and the dog followed me, like he always does because for some reason he loves me, even though I n...

One is a lonely number. But so is 2 when the other person is a toddler. I'm missing my little girls tonight and all week. Most days, I just pray to God that maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to hold my children in my arms every night like I used to. For a few months, from September until Christmas, God gave me that gift. Their dad was going to move to Idaho and for four wonderful months, I watched my girls' anxiety ebb. I watched the light come back into their faces. I watched them become calm and secure. While their dad worked on getting ready to sell the house and move two states away, they began to know what to expect. They smiled and laughed with confidence, not uncertainty. When they saw their dad, they came home to me bubbling with excitement and happy to crawl into their beds and kiss their mommy good night. They knew where home was. And they were happy. He didn't move. He decided to stay. He said he wanted to go back to uprooting them on a weekly basis. I asked ...