Oh the days of Singlemotherhood

My husband had to go to a mandatory work training conference thing. It happens once a year, every year. With all the busy-ness and craziness that is my schedule, I forgot that it was coming up. He says to me, "Don't forget, I'm leaving for Springfield on Tuesday, you'll have Lorenzo ALL DAY and you need to bring him to daycare on Wednesday. I should be back in time Wednesday night to pick him up." Oh I forgot alright and let's just say, things did not go well.

Monday I worked a long day as usual and got home late. The plan was for Lorenzo to be asleep by the time I got home so we could eat dinner together (which never happens, even when it's super late) and cuddle up with a movie (something else that never happens). When I got home, it was nearly 9pm and my little man (almost 15 months old) is wide awake and raring to go! I look at my husband, "So much for being asleep by the time I got home!" That little snot refused to go to sleep until after 11pm!! My husband is practically freaking out because he had to be up at 4am! By the time Lorenzo went to bed, it was too late to do anything and we were both tired. I was pretty disappointed because things had been so crazy busy for me that even though we live in the same house, we operate in different time zones and schedules. My husband even came to my work that day to install Wi-Fi for us and decided to treat me to lunch. It was a flop because the Subway we went to was IN A GAS STATION without seating and we were the 17th and 18th people in line! We waited 20 minutes just to get our subs and then the dude at checkout didn't know how to ring up a BOGO coupon. COME ON! So, we parted ways with him having to scarf his lunch on the way to work, rushing into a meeting, and me taking mine back to work with only 10 minutes to spare before my next patient. 


Tuesday, Lorenzo seemed to be happy. He woke up and played in his crib for a little while before getting fussy. He got his bottle, played a little while, ate some breakfast, played some more, ate some lunch, and then OH MY GOD it was nap time. My child usually does pretty well with the whole sleeping and nap thing. Not that day! He was possessed by some brat who refused sleep! I tried all the conventional methods of rocking, cradling, bouncing, laying, nothing worked. Finally, I had to dump him in his crib and walk away. Hearing him screaming, I made the executive decision to call and reschedule an appointment I had at 4pm. I knew Lorenzo would either be super cranky or he'd be into everything and I wouldn't be able to concentrate at all. He cried for nearly 20 minutes before falling asleep.

Tuesday night hits and my dear Lorenzo is again refusing sleep! He's the type of baby who is in bed between 6:30-7:30pm and anything after that is way too late. It's now 8pm and he's still up! I catch him rubbing his eyes a few times so I knew he was sleepy but he wouldn't go down! Every time I put him near the crib, he'd freak out. Knowing I had to be up by 5:30am, I again dumped him in the crib and walked away. He screamed at the top of his lungs for 45 minutes before collapsing in exhaustion! I was so worried that he'd be hoarse the next day! I don't sleep very well without Anthony so I ended up staying up until 1am and then tossed and turned all night! I heard Lorenzo getting up every few hours because he'd take a rattle and run it across the crib rails like a jailer.    -.-

Wednesday, don't ask me what I was thinking every time my alarm went off at 5am, 5:15, 5:30, 5:45, 6am, and 6:15! I kept thinking, I have time, I have time. Oh no I didn't!! Lorenzo woke up at 5:50am and fussed around. I jumped outta bed, running into the shower at 6:15 but then got in there and took the time to shave my pits and legs?? What was I thinking! This wasn't a leisure shower! Wash the privates and get out!! 
I run out the bathroom in a towel and grab a bottle out of the fridge. I give it to him, he shuts up, so I run to get dressed and do my hair. After throwing on a summer dress and tossing my hair up, I realize, I don't have time to walk the dog since the baby is up. I put Armani out on the porch, he decides to be prissy and not go, while I look at the clock 6:43am!! OH MY GOD I have to go! I should have left at 6:40 to be at daycare by 6:50 so I can drop him off, say hi to the director, and merrily be on my way, with plenty of time to stop and get my mocha frappe. That didn't happen. Crap! I don't have any lunch! After scrounging around the fridge, I grab some left over buffalo chicken wings, some carrots, hummus, and a little bit of raspberry danish. Sucky lunch in comparison to the feasts I normally bring. I work 12 hour days for the most part so I bring A LOT of food. This was sucky, indeed.


Of all things the daycare needed, jars of stage 3 fruit weighed down the daycare bag. I had that, my work bag, my big reusable insulated lunch bag, some bags to return to the store, and Lorenzo. I had to set it all down to put Armani in his crate, pick them all back up, and then awkwardly toddle to the car. Lorenzo clearly wanted to get down to walk and explore but I didn't have time for that so I carried his 20lb toosh. I'm positive I pulled a muscle. As I leave the garage area, I slam on the breaks and hit reverse. I forgot his bottles and sippy cup in the fridge so I had to jog through my condo community, back into the house, and back. My attempt to speed to the daycare, didn't work because there were cars everywhere, and slow ones at that! I finally get there and pull up behind the mother of twins. She brings one in and then comes out to get the other and any paraphernalia. Normally, I would have offered to help. Not today. I grab the bag and get Lorenzo. I should just scoop him up and run him in but he should practice walking and the people at daycare don't normally see me drop him off (Anthony has more time than I do in the mornings so he drops him off and picks him up because I work late) so they're gonna want to talk and shoot the breeze. I don't want to look rude but I am on a time crunch. A glance at the clock tells me I have 2.5 minutes to shoot the breeze. So, I set Lorenzo on the ground, offer my pointer finger which he dutifully grabs, and off we go. He looks down and looks back up at me like, "OH MY GOD Mama! It's grass! And dirt! And wood chips!!" He wants to touch them all and I'm saying NO! and dragging him along. (Yes, I looked like THAT type of parent.) So, he's stretching out one leg to try to touch the wood chips and I drag him, "Come On! Lorenzo, NO!" I breeze him into the daycare while the director is speaking with Mom of Twins. Mom of Twins exclaims, "**GASP!** You're walking?!" I laughed something unintelligible and look at the director. She says, "Come on Boyfriend, Mom's gotta get to work! How are you Cristine?" and then she gives me a smirky look. I tell her I'm frazzled, I'm probably gonna be late or gonna have to sacrifice my frappe and today's the day I need it! 


Turns out, she was giving me a smirky look because my summer dress was unbuttoned way down passed my chest!! My boobs and bra were totally hanging out for the world to see!! Red faced, I told them about jogging through my condo community when I forgot the bottles. (Full of old people who know me because of the baby, no less! "The young girl with the baby, you know, in #47, went jogging passed the window this morning! Her whole bosom and brassiere were flailing in the wind, for the whole world to see! Didn't she realize she was giving us a peep show?!")  Everyone got a good laugh, I'm sure. I made it to work on time, albeit without my mocha frappe. I could have used it too, seeing how I was grumpy the whole morning. My grumpiness (and probably my lack of sleep) caused a raging headache by lunch time. 


Needless to say, it was a LONG day but at least I managed to keep my bosoms and brassiere from showing the rest of the time. 

Defining Moment In My Parenting

A couple weeks ago, my husband had to travel for a business trip. Being an IT professional for an insurance company, it's pretty rare that he has to travel. It was a voluntary IT conference that he researched and got permission to attend. All in all, sure it was a pretty sweet deal for him... not for me. It was great personal knowledge and growth as a techy geeky person, great professional growth as an IT professional, not great as a husband and father.

The reason I say that is because I work and don't "stay home" with our little 13 month old. I work Monday, Wednesday, Friday usually about 11-12 hour days. While I'm working, our son goes to daycare. So I'm thinking, Oh My Gosh, what am I going to do!

Besides freaking out about being by myself with Lorenzo and having absolutely no help or relief, I was freaking out due to the daycare's hours. Their hours are shorter than mine so getting my kid to and from there was going to be tricky.

Thankfully, we have an awesome set of friends in our Tuesday Night Dinner crew who picked him up for me and I just had to go to their house to get him. Phewww... what a load of my mind, let me tell you! Matt and Amanda are amazing! They even have a little boy a little older than Lorenzo so they got to play together. Lorenzo went home with them, ate his dinner, got a bath, changed into jammies, and played until I got there. All Mama had to do was literally pick him up out of the car seat and put him into his crib, thank God! So my worries about the picking him up thing were all put to ease. But that didn't solve dropping him off...

It takes me about 20 minutes to get to work from where I live. But if I leave at the wrong time, it could take me as long as an hour to drive the 5 miles to the highway on-ramp! So dropping Lorenzo off to daycare adds an extra 20 minutes to my commute. And that's not even factoring in any chit chat time with the director. I had to think this through... What was my game plan going to be?? After much thought, this is what I came up with.

5:00am- Alarm is going off
5:30am- Roll out of bed to shower
5:45am- Get ready for work
6:00am- Pack my lunch
6:15am- Gather work bag, lunch bag, diaper bag, daycare bag of stuff needed, and walk them to the care while I walk the dog
6:30am- Feed the dog, drink a glass of juice, change the baby
6:40am- Put the dog in the crate and leave

Before you even begin to wonder, yes, I most certainly DID stick to that rigid timeline and I wasn't late. And this doesn't even factor in all the prep work I did the night before to make sure everything was ready. I had to gather everything the daycare needed like wipes, diapers, clothes, etc, make the bottles, make my lunch, gather my stuff, etc. Doing all that made it so much easier to just grab everything I needed in the morning.

Well, I made it to the daycare by 6:55am, knowing I have to be on my way no later than 7:10am so I can still have time to get my usual morning Mocha Frappé from McDonalds, all the while wondering if they'll even let me drop him off 5 minutes before they technically open.

I pull up and see all the lights off. (What the heck, aren't they open at 7am?? They better be open at 7am! I have to be at work by 7:45am! I get Lorenzo, his stuff, and walk up to the doors. Definitely locked with lights off. Crap. What am I going to do?!)

As I turn around, someone drives up. A girl that I don't know and have never met comes up to me saying someone got stuck in traffic and something about a fire. Huh, what? I'm not listening because I'm too busy staring at your blonde and red hair mixture. She reaches for Lorenzo saying she'd take him and telling me to go because I'll be late. (I don't know you and you're taking my kid out of my arms... Yes, I WILL be late if I stay until someone I know shows up but still... I don't know you!!) I don't take Lorenzo to daycare usually either. (Maybe she's been working here and Anthony never told me. I don't want to say anything, I mean, it's pretty common knowledge that what gets said to Anthony doesn't make it to my ears... What do I do?!)

I'm having an internal battle. 

I tell her he hasn't eaten yet but has had a diaper change. She assures me the director is on her way, there was a fire on her street so she got caught in some traffic (Ohhh so THAT's what you were saying...), she repeats that I'm going to be late and that they will be fine.

As I drive away, I call Anthony and leave him a very indecisive voicemail about the occurrence. I make it to work feeling even more unsettled. I glance down at my dashboard and it's 48 degrees outside. I left my child with a stranger (to me), only wearing jeans and a long sleeve onesie with a blanket wrapped around him, without having been fed for the morning.

OH. MY. GOD. If Anthony had done that, I would have been REALLY upset with him. THAT is when I realized I made the wrong decision. I should have just stayed until someone I knew showed up. But I didn't want to be that parent that acted like I didn't trust them. I didn't want to be that parent all the workers roll their eyes at. I didn't want to be late to work.

I made it to work with my Frappé in hand, still feeling all out of sorts, had a ton of messages from the middle of the night, patients showed up before our office was even technically open. I was very busy and was absorbed in my own thoughts. Before I knew it, I had a very upset director on the phone with me, apologizing profusely, and nearly in tears. Lorenzo is her favorite baby in daycare. She was as upset as if it were her own son. I wasn't mad at her and completely understood the circumstances. I was mad at myself for doing something I wasn't comfortable with. I was angry that I succumbed to what was "socially acceptable" and what I thought was the "normal thing other parents do." Ladies and gentlemen, Mother Of The Year Award, right there! I felt as if I took 3 steps backward with my Postpartum Depression.

At the end of the day, I learned to go with my gut instinct. If I'm not comfortable with something concerning my child, I shouldn't and won't do it! It doesn't matter what other people think as long as I'm secure in the decisions I've made and my parenting choices! I have to own up to every decision I make, I want to be sure that I don't regret them and if that means being late to work and forgoing my Mocha Frappé to ensure my child's safety so be it.