Going it alone
I oftentimes feel like I'm going it alone when it comes to caring for Claire & Carter. Chase is an amazing husband, an even more amazing father, & an incredibly hard worker.
Before I start complaining too much. I know that I'm incredibly lucky in the simple fact that he comes home every night. He doesn't have a dangerous job. Unless of course, someone happens to have run out of their crazy meds & he, for some unknown reason, decides not to give them a refill. I digress. He has job security. Because, really. People aren't going to stop going to the doctor & they aren't going to stop taking their medication.
But his schedule? It sucks. He is the only full-time pharmacist in his store. On his days off they have to bring someone in from another store to cover. So when they can't find someone, he ends up working extra days. He is only supposed to work 4 days a week. He works from 9a-7p.
And that's where the suck starts. He normally rolls out of bed around 8:30. Just enough time to get dressed for the day, drink a cup of coffee & catch about 5 minutes of the news. He squeezes in a little cuddle time with the kids, we might have a semi-coherent conversation if I've been able to get in my cup of coffee, & then at 8:50 he's out the door.
The kids are up by 7:30, so from 7:30-8:30, I'm trying to crawl out of my sleep deprived cave & remember that the kids don't get that I'm not a morning person. They don't get that I require that first cup of coffee to get my day started. So to make up for their lack of understanding, they get their cup & bottle & get to enjoy an hour-ish of mind numbing Disney channel fluff. They get their 10 minutes of Daddy time, and then the day gets started.
Breakfast is at 9. By 9:45, Roo's ready for his first nap. Claire & I cuddle for a little bit & then she "helps" me clean up the kitchen. We find our clothes for the day, pick up stray toys, & enjoy our girl time. Once Roo wakes up, the kids get dressed & we generally head out to kill an our or two. We go see Chase at work. 9 times out of 10, we don't need to buy a thing, but we go anyways, just so the kids can talk to & hug on their Daddy for a few minutes. We run to Sonic, where Claire knows that as soon as my window goes down, I'll ask for a "bina COKE!" We run any errands that I haven't been able to do on Chase's last day off & then head home for lunch. Naptime is between 12:30-1:00, depending on how crazy our morning was.
Once the kids wake up, it's snacktime, part I. And then? Who knows. Most days, afternoons are a crapshoot. I never know if I'm going to have my two little superstars or if I'm going to go retrieve the Loch Ness monster's offspring from their beds. Some days we just hang out at home, the kids in their playroom while I try to get a little work done, some days we're outside with the other kids. Basically, we're doing whatever we can to make the hours between 3:00 & 6:00 go as fast as possible. Around 6:00, the kids sit down for snacktime, part II & I get started on dinner. Not only does the second snack help me get dinner ready, but the kids need to have another one to tide them over since dinnertime isn't until about 7:15.
Once Chase gets home, we sit down & eat, rushing through the meal so I can get the kids in & out of the tub as fast as possible so that they can have some quality time with Dad. Bedtime is 8:30 & is pretty much non-negotiable. Partly for my sanity, but mostly because that's when the kids are done & anything later than that is a recipe for disaster.
That's why I feel like most days I'm going at this crazy thing called parenting alone. It's a great day if the kids get to spend 2 hours with Chase. He misses the funnies, the tears, the accidents & triumphs. He misses the good behavior and also the bad. And I think the kids realize this. Because when Chase is home, they are almost always on their best behavior. They show off, they giggle & squeal, they dig out toys & books & drop them in his lap. They climb & crawl, try to wrestle, poke his eyes. These kids adore their Daddy & take every opportunity to let him know.
Our time together as a family is limited. Every other week, Chase has a 3 day weekend. Lately those weekends have been filled with trips back to Oklahoma to attend one family function after another. The other week is a 5 day week, leaving even less time to watch his babes grow. Again with the luck. I am lucky to have a husband & father to my children that literally craves time with his kids. Misses them so much that at least once a week we grab one of them out of their bed & bring them to ours. Even though we know that 20 minutes later, they'll be wide awake & start fussing to go back to their own. To him, it's worth the whining & tears when they've had enough.
So most days? It's worth feeling like I walk this road alone. No matter how alone I feel, how tested I am, I know that at the end of the day, I've got an amazing man standing by my side, who wants nothing more than for his wife & children to be happy. A man who would walk to China & back to make sure his kids have everything their heart desires. A man who is blessed enough to know that, even though their time together is limited, the love & admiration he has for his children is returned, tenfold.
Are any of you single moms, truly walking this road alone? Do any of you feel this same way?
Labels: baby love, motherhood, time
posted by Cara @ 10:50 PM
7 Comments:
I feel exactly the same way you do. I started making my hubby give the kids a bath so he gets more time with them and i get a break. My hubby works until about 6:30 every night, not as late as yours. But I feel alone a lot. I know for sure I'm not, evidenced by how lonely i actually was and how exhausted I actually was while my hubby was a way the whole week.
I know it's really challenging to be grateful sometimes for what I have, a lot of the time to be honest with you. I'm just so tired all the time and my house is a struggle to keep up b/c the kids wear me out. And it never seems to change. I guess this is the season, sadly. I hope we learn something from it, if that makes sense. Take care and hang in there, i'm trying to right along with ya! :)
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Oh Cara, I feel you! Jim is gone most days from 9am to 10pm, with an hour home in the afternoon. There are days when Chase doesn't lay eyes on him at all. It's really hard. Add that to the fact that on his days off I work, and you get zero family time. I feel like you though, he works so hard for us, and adores us...so we do what we have to. Hopefully in a few years the insane-o schedule will pay off...and we will gain some normality in our lifes.
PS- Do you ever feel like you schedule with them is totally shot to shit on his days off? It annoys me sometimes! I'm so used to doing it by myself, that I don't know how to get anything done when he is home!
We used to have days like this, most of my Hubbie's jobs have been with companies that are start ups or run downs,where they ar etrying to get the most out of their employees before they bust or before they make it big?
I find that MJ get a lot ore daddy time then TJ had,and AJ had a good middle of the road balance.When we started this we only had 1 car, ACK! and hubbie worked an hour from our home. That is crazy! and with traffic at 5, it would take him about the same to gethome 7 and 715, I'd shove food under thei rnoses and go walking. LOL
Now here it's the house repairs, lawnmowing and car repairs that take him from us. Lastnight was good though, he wnet out and hit them all with a baseball. LOL
As a single mom, I have similar but different issues. I'm alone in it all, much like you are. My sons father misses everything-good and bad. He chooses not to be part of his sons life, but it's the sadness of my son not having his dad around that bothers me more than anything.
Your kids will know that their dad worked hard, that he loved them and came home every night, that he provided for all their needs, and they will cherish the time they do have with him.
As for you and how you're feeling---you sound like you have a good man. This is real life, right? We work hard, we make time for each other as we can. I don't have a man, and what I miss most about not having a father-figure around is having someone to just share things with---so maybe at dinner, you can make it a time where you recap the funnies and the sad things of the day, and involve him that way. I'm sure he's feeling the pain of missing out on the day to day life stuff, just as much as you are missing him being there.
Ugh, that is so hard when you have to do everything alone and you don't have much backup during the day.
Jamie works from home but sometimes it makes it harder on me since he'll be on conference calls or really busy and it's impossible to keep the kids quiet. He does come out for lunch/naptime and helps get the kids fed and put down for their naps so that's a huge help for me.
Your days sound a lot like mine though, the killing time and doing something/anything to kill a chunk of time. Our time killers are Target, Publix, Lowes and Gymboree.. we spend the majority of our mornings or afternoons out of the house or all hell will break loose with the kids.
I'm not a single mom, but I feel you. Nelson leave the house around 6:45AM (before the kids rise) and gets home 6:15-6:45, depending on traffic. That's a long day on my own. Every other Friday, he teleworks and gets home an hour earlier, and then he off on the opposite Friday, which is nice. He's incredibly helpful when he's home though. He gives one of the boys a bath every night, he picks up all the toys, he puts away laundry, he takes out the trash. I don't know what I'd do if he weren't as helpful as he is.
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