I hate when Jeff travels. Unfortunately, he does so a lot, usually from 10-14 days at a time and it sucks. I seriously do not know how single moms, military wives, widows or any one else having to care for a child alone gets through the day let alone 18 years.

During the work week, it’s not THAT bad, particularly now that we’ve stopped letting daycare put him down for a nap – he’s asleep by 8:30pm which is a HUGE improvement over the 10:30 bedtimes we were dealing with. But the weekends are a bit rough, particularly because I haven’t been feeling that well since Jeff gave me whatever mysterious illness he was harboring before he hopped on the plane (thanks babe!)

Keep in mind too that everything I’m about to complain about is compounded by the fact that Jasper does not listen to a word I say so that EVERY task, no matter how small and mundane becomes a battle of epic proportions. Sometimes just getting him to GET IN HIS CARSEAT can send me over the edge. In fact, I’m quite sure that our neighbors will be calling CPS to investigate us at any moment based on the fact that I am constantly yelling at him to GET IN THE CAR NOW as he stops to turn on a map light, pick up whatever random toy he threw on the car floor the day before, pretend “fall” and yet a million other stall tactics designed to drive me insane during this task that we have to repeat at least 5 times a day.

I think this pictures pretty much sums up the stage he’s in at the moment:

Also add to the backdrop of it all the fact that he asks me “Mommy can you play with me?” every second of every day. Literally, I could be getting dressed, shirt over my head, in the bathroom brushing my teeth, in the kitchen cooking breakfast- any one of a multitude of tasks which quite obviously make it impossible for me to in fact stop what I am doing and play.  And yes I know that it’s SO sweet that he’s at an age where he actually desperately wants to spend time with me – but damn it would be nice if he could entertain himself for more than .5 seconds! And then there’s the guilt too that comes with saying no, I can NOT play with you right now all the time.

So the stage has been set, here is just a little recap of the actual events of the weekend:

Yesterday I had a sales session in the morning that my parents thankfully babysat for, but  didn’t really have much planned for the rest of the day (we had a playdate that got canceled) so I took him to Target to shop for the three birthday parties we have coming up this week.  I know you are shaking your head wondering what I was thinking bringing the 3 year old with me to buy toys for OTHER children, but remember I didn’t really have the option of leaving him home (see the husband is away bit!)

I ALMOST managed to put the toys in the cart without him quite realizing what was going on, but, because he insisted on sitting in the basket part of the cart I had the toys sort of leaning on the handle bars so of course he spotted the Play doh ice cream set and his eyes got HUGE and he said “Mommy is that for ME???!” in a voice so genuinely excited and full of anticipation that I could not NOT get him one of his own. Sigh.

Oh well, at least a new toy would provide some much needed distraction.  I also picked up a robe for him because that’s his other new thing – even though our old drafty house is FREEZING to all other normal humanoids, somehow Jasper finds the constant need to take his sweaters and socks off.

Channeling Hugh and demonstrating his new and oft used sulky face:

Playing with his new guilt-gift play doh set:

After play-doh he wanted to watch a movie but he needed a bath, cue the “I don’t want to get into the bath / I won’t get OUT of the bath” routine:

At some point that night I developed a migraine-like nausea inducing headache, and then this morning I woke up with a stomach ache that lasted all day.  Had Jeff been here I would have definitely sent him with the kid and the present to the birthday party we had scheduled at 10:30, but instead I dragged my ass into the shower, fed the child (no, I don’t WANT scrambled eggs!) wrapped the gift (melt down because I didn’t let him do the actual wrapping) and headed off to Wee Play.

But not before I grabbed Jasper and quietly and purposefully held his hand, looked him in the eye and told him that mommy really wasn’t feeling well and that I needed him to PLEASE help me by listening, getting his coat on without a fight and into the carseat without giving me a hard time.   This approach used to work, but aparantly not anymore because literally seconds after our little “conversation” he was playing a game he made up that consisted of him refusing to put his arms into his jacket (wow, FUN!)

Finally we make it to wee-play and it’s a much needed time-killer. He has a blast on the big kid giant climber and made it to the truck at the tippy top with no fear:

But apparently the giant corkscrew tube slide was too dark and scary because I had to climb up it three times to rescue him.

I’ve only ever been to Wee play when it was PACKED, teaming with kids, but I guess I’d never been there before at naptime because by 1pm it was a ghost town.. apparently I’m the only one lucky enough to have a child who is impervious to the need for sleep.  We stuck around until about 3 before we headed home because I was feeling so bad I thought I was going to die. I counted the minutes until my parents got home from their errands and we could go over there for dinner. I had hoped that dinner was going to be more than just us literally eating (we can do that at home, it’s really a break that I need!) but they didn’t get home until after 6pm and I really want him in bed reading books by 8pm on nights when he doesn’t nap. It was a quick visit but Jasper did manage to get in a little bit of playtime with Pop-pop before we left:

So we finally get home, I throw a load of laundry in, get his milk and water ready for bedtime and am about to come upstairs when Jasper tells me that Sammy (our 17 year old deaf, blind and incontinent dog) is falling down the stairs.

I put everything I’m carrying down and pick her up to put her outside and she literally PEES ALL OVER ME as well as a good deal of the stairs, carpet and wood floor that I put her down on once I realized what was happening.

At this point, something just snapped inside my brain and I let out a strangled sounding scream of frustration, which apparently really freaked Jasper out because he started bawling. So now, I’m covered in pee, the floor is covered in pee, my child is wailing, I’m feeling like the world’s worst mom and it’s now almost 8:30 and we haven’t even STARTED the whole bedtime process.

The scary thing is that the REAL fun hasn’t even begun yet: I go off the pill tonight to start our IVF cycle, so at some point this week I get to start the whole trying to get to the fertility clinic in time for monitoring routine.  And if it works? I’ll have these wonderful business trips of Jeff’s to look forward to with TWO babies and an incontinent geriatric dog to care for on my own.. yippee!!!

Filed under: parenting, Rant by ariana
17 Comments »

You might also like

I HATE Daycare! Today is day three of Jasper going to daycare and already he is sick! He has a super congested nose and...

IUI #1 BFN I got my period yesterday.. just 12 days post IUI, which makes my luteal phase length 11. WTF? This was...

Happy Mother’s Day That was the highlight of my otherwise totally craptastic Mother's Day.. there were nice gifts from...

California Dreamin’ After 2+ years we finally decided to break our self-imposed plane trip embargo and book a trip to the...