#only parent

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

+Bonus

[wearego]

Reasons Not to Panic

I’ve been working on my next post in the “Reasons NOT to have a Kid” series, and It’s all starting to feel a little too doom and gloom. So I thought I would take a time out and make it clear that having a kid on my own has not ruined my life or my kid’s life. Very much to the contrary. I have never been happier. (With my life, I mean. Everything outside of the little bubble of my daily existence, particularly my country, is a heaping pile of misery. I’m no where close to making my peace with the election.) 

I will share an example of the ways in which my life is joyous. I suppose I should not speak for all two year olds, but I can tell you that mine is an acolyte of Kali the Destroyer of Worlds. We have the typical conflicts that blended faith households do, but this weekend we had a moment of true peace. I was reorganizing all of our clothes storage, and my son helped. And by “helped” I don’t mean he threw everything on the floor and turned over a dresser. He actually carefully brought me piles of clothes from another room without unfolding most of them. I’ve been riding that high for days. 

Okay. I already see this might not be the reassuring story I intended. Perhaps my utter joy that a mundane, simple task wasn’t made unbearable isn’t inspiring, but maybe you had to be there. 

Let me try a different tak. Sputnik laughs all the time. Granted, sometimes it’s maniacal laughter, but he is a damn happy kid. Even when he’s done something he’s not supposed to-like hitting, it’s more often than not because he’s really excited. Tonight, when I picked him up from daycare, we were laughing and playing in the parking lot, and he punched me in the nose. And when he’s having an exceptionally good time, he bites me. Hard. It’s like he’s filled with so much joy he can’t contain himself. My best friend has pointed out that he’s going to make a certain kind of girl very happy one day. 

At this point I probably sound more like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome than a happy mom, but the truth is that everything about dealing with my little terrorist is more interesting than everything else I do. Just writing that sentence was hard because I don’t want to be someone whose entire life is about her kid. And yet, I can’t think of anything more interesting than my kid, tiny domestic abuser that he is. Mind you...if he suddenly started eating the thing I made for dinner and stopped trying to launch himself off of every surface in the house (including me), I would not complain. 

[gaylabaer]

The Ghost of Many Father’s Day’s Past from a Mom in The Only Parent Club

The Ghost of Many Father’s Day’s Past from a Mom in The Only Parent Club

Yesterday was Father’s Day. A day, that for the last 22 years, has taken on a very different meaning for me, and one I tend to struggle with. It is a day reserved to recognize those men who are actually active participants in the lives of their children. Men who know the value of the little lives they helped create. One young mother, who is in a very similar position to the one I was in for many…

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