This is why there are supposed to be two parents

When Rachel was a baby I said to Jim "Geez. I don't think I could make it as a single mom." Huh. Who knew.

I believe that kids need two parents. I don't care who the parents are - husband and wife, wife and wife, husband and husband. But I think there should be two parents in any home. Not for the kid's sake - kids turn out just fine with a single parent. I think it's for the parents' sake. For their own sanity, people naturally pair off. When Parent A runs out of steam, Parent B can pick up the ball and run with it. Parent B can hand a wailing baby to Parent A and say "I've had enough for the moment" and recharge - if only for a few minutes. And, in our case today, my counterpart could have done something with the kids through the witching hour while I prepared dinner.

I am done with being a parent for the day. Actually, I was done around 2:30 but Jim hasn't come back to relieve me yet, so I guess I have to keep going. But at this point the kids are upstairs doing...something. And I just don't care what it is.

Weekends get really long without Parent B (or A, as the case may be). I had better have at least one activity planned for each day. On Sundays I'm delighted to go to church because it's like a ritual for us. We get up, hang in our jammies for awhile. We start getting ready (typically too late) and run out the door to make it there by 10:00. I get an interesting hour listening to Pastor Kirby while my kids are having fun, watched over by nice people. And I get a blissful hour to myself. After church, without fail, we hit the little market here in Kohler and get donuts with sprinkles on them. And by the time we get home, eat our donuts and some juice...well, then it's time for nap and we've had our activity for the day. (Plus I get to get dressed up for church which is nice for me.)

But today, I was disappointed to find that Jake is really snotty and coughing. Rachel sounds really stuffed up. I wanted to go to church. I knew it would have been wrong to go. What if my kids get other kids sick? As a germaphobe, I find it highly annoying when people bring their sick kids to daycare/Sunday school/gym class...you get the point. There goes our activity for the day. So now I'm fed up with the kids. I just want to light a fire and watch football. I want to talk on the phone and sound like I'm sincerely listening. I want to eat cereal and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups for dinner, not try and figure out how to get the correct food groups into my kids. Do you think the teensy carrots in Dora soup count? I want my Parent B back. I want to have an unplanned activity day and have that be okay. I want to...take a nap without Rachel coming in 30 times and saying "Is quiet time over yet?"

This blog is just a giant whine fest. I sound like one of my kids. We had a very nice weekend and we went to the Children's Museum in Milwaukee yesterday. It was great fun. And I picked up the new stationery that I ordered and it's totally awesome. Rachel painted some wonderful pictures this morning. Today my kids were really good all day until the witching hour.

But I did have my first meltdown tonight. I can't bear to have any more snot rubbed on me. Maybe that's the real benefit of a 2 parent household - the grossness gets divided between two people. (Although, sometime I'll write a blog about how as a baby Rachel only threw up on me.)My mom is coming tomorrow for a well-timed trip to help me. (Although I maintain that I didn't call her in desperation - she'd planned to visit before I had my meltdown tonight.)

Only Parent Lesson #3 - have plans. Then have plans if those plans don't work out. And then have plans if those plans don't work out.