If People Only Knew….
… how frustrating it is for them to spring a weekend event on a single parent…and not provide child care. This weekend is going to be another bust, when I will get little to nothing done at home. Pretty soon, the place is going to be a complete dump.
There’s a handbell festival this weekend. I really want to go, but it’s Friday night and all day Saturday (strike one), it requires advance preparation (strike two), and there is no child care (strike three). I’m going, but only because my choir director said that I could skip Friday night, we’ve already worked on the pieces in handbell practice, and my mom has agreed to keep the kids for me on Saturday. (Please let the weather be nice so they can play outside!)
Then my mom tells me this morning that we will probably be going to my Grandma’s to celebrate birthdays on Sunday afternoon. Sundays are already full, with church in the morning and bells at night. Grandma lives half an hour away. So that means church to Grandma’s to church, with no stop-offs at home. It’s not that I mind going to Grandma’s — I love her to bits and I don’t get to see enough of her. It’s just that I hate losing both my Saturday and my Sunday.
Usually I try to keep Sunday afternoon free if I’m going to be busy on Saturday, or, if I’m going to be busy on Sunday, I try to keep Saturday unencumbered. I couldn’t do that last weekend, and I won’t be able to do it this weekend, either. Being a single mother means I have to fit in all the laundry and cleaning and errands and stuff in the snips of time available to me.
My one light in this tunnel is that next weekend is a “daddy weekend” and I have several days off in the next couple of weeks because of Passover. Including one glorious four-day weekend that will run from 3 pm on Friday, 9 April through Tuesday, 13 April. While I would love to use the whole time to do crazy, goof-off stuff with the kids, I’m actually planning that whole weekend now so that I can get all the work done and still have time for fun with the kids. I can get a head start on April 3 and 4 (a daddy weekend) and April 6 and 7, the first two days of Passover, when our offices are closed.
I can’t tell you how much I am holding out until Friday week. Things will be insane at work over Passover, but I will have lots of time to get my home in order. And I think life would be a lot less stressful if I weren’t having to climb over laundry and piles of papers and stuff. Only ten more days. Only ten more days……
2 Comments
My mom was a working single mom with no daddy in sight, and she only had me. I think I know how hard things can get. My granny, her mom, was a big help to us. (She still is)
I admire you for being a single mum. I have the cheek to moan sometimes, that, I look after my children all day, as my husband does not get in to about 7, and by then everythink for the children and home is done, but to actually, be on my own all night too, I could not do it, so if I could I would give you a medal, well done, you are a brilliant mum, and I hope you get to go out and enjoy yourself, good on you.