A Week of Misadventure

Sometimes life gets in the way...of blogging at least. So, I humbly register my apologies for not posting for a while, but I think this blog will explain why things have been a little hectic at my house lately. It mostly involves timing more than anything.

You know how life seems to be going along at a nice clip and you know it's too good to be true? Well, it usually is and it was a few weeks ago. I had a normal Tuesday and upon stopping into work on Wednesday I learned of a terrible loss a co-woker had experienced unexpectedly overnight. After recovering from the initial shock, I began to formulate how I could help and I decided to offer to take over much of her duties at work when I could. This entailed spending a lot of time trying to do both her job and mine (thankful that the time I couldn't help, a journalism professor here could). I was so glad I had the skillset to be able to help and it really just meant staying a little longer at work here and there. Well, this works all fine and good because my wonderful husband was available each night to pick up our son from daycare and take him home (which is usually my duty).

A few days of this and it's going well until lunch one day when my husband says, "I hate to even say this out loud, but I have to go out of town for a few days." Wow. Now my support drops out! Of course work would come calling now because that's how it usually goes right? Neither of us are overly busy for a long time, then all of the sudden, BAM! We talk it out and decide that I can get some help filling in the later times at work for the next few days so I can go back to picking up my son and it all works out great, crises are averted and all of that good stuff. Eventually, life pretty much gets back to the new normal. Now, I'm officially back to doing my own work, which is nice in a lot of ways but I was glad that I could help out when needed.

I have to be honest. I admire single parents or those that are alone for long periods of time. Raising our son is very much a partnership and I find myself a little bamboozled from time-to-time when I'm alone. It's the simple things like leaving the baby with my husband when I have to go to the bathroom, or when I want to take a shower or when I answer the phone, switch the laundry, etc. Oh, believe me, I've found ways around some of that by adapating as I'm sure all parents faced with this do. Some are normal, some are funny. My personal favorite is the day I took my son to the bathroom with me. It's a little strange, yes, but I just held him on my lap. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do! He's about to the stage now where you can't leave him alone because he's somewhat mobile and even a 2-minute trip to the bathroom could turn ugly and leaving him in his crib is just a stressful trip to the bathroom because he cries most of the time unless he's already peaceful and happy, so you do what you gotta do! I'm sure some of you out there can relate! You can't tell me you haven't spread a blanket out on the floor of your bathroom and made funny faces in the mirror while you put on your makeup in the morning to keep the little person in your life happy!? Well, that's at least another one of my little tricks. I try to do everything else after he's gone to bed for the evening.

So, anyway, the stress of doing two jobs in one, grad school, my single parenting moment and everything else has pretty much evened out now, but it was definitely one crazy week worthy of the misadventures. Oh, and as for my son...I think he came out of it okay too.