Secret Single Parent

Aug 24, 2012 by Lauren

Adam left last Friday on a week-long fishing trip to Canada, so I’ve been a single parent for the last 7 days.  What a journey that has been!

One weird thing about living in the country is it’s usually a smart move not to advertise when you are traveling for an extended period OR when you will be home alone for an extended period.  Maybe that’s just common sense and shouldn’t only apply to us country-folk but I constantly see my suburban friends sharing pictures at the beach, changing Facebook statuses to “leaving on a jet plane” or tweeting about the cool places they’re going.  I would think, considering the fact that suburbs have way more people than Goofy Ridge, therefore there are way more criminals, that it would be the suburban people clamming up about their locations.  Not so much.  As I’ve said before, everything in the country is a “secret.”  It drives me insane.

Maybe it’s just the nature of country dwellers to be more private…oh wait, but then everyone wouldn’t know everyone else’s business….so that must not be it!  Well, whatever the reason, it’s a much bigger deal out here to not share with the public that you’re leaving until AFTER you’re back.  Adam made me promise that I wouldn’t spread the word that he was gone via Facebook.  (Which, side note, part of me finds hilarious.  I highly doubt it’s my FB friends that are coming to steal all my shit and rape me in the middle of the night.  If you’ve been to my house, you know the only 3 things of value are an SUV, a tv and a laptop.  That may SOUND like a lot but, again, my FB friends would know that the SUV aka Snobmobile has more miles than any 2 yr old vehicle deserves and it has its own special diaper/goldfish cracker odor.  The TV is 5 years old and so heavy you couldn’t get it down if you tried.  The laptop is on its last legs, due in no small part to my one year old’s repeated Diet Pepsi assaults on the keyboard.  The only person who really wants to rob this house is probably a three year old.  And yes, I do understand Adam’s concerns, I’m not an idiot.  It’s just a little bit funny when you spell it all out.  I guess I better not let anyone know if I fart either, because someone might come over with a match and blow the place up.)  So, my apologies for not letting you all know earlier that I’d be MIA from the blog for a few days, but I hope you can understand why.

Can I just pause for a second here and say that it is a truly weird feeling being frightened to stay alone in your own home?  It made me feel like a scared little kid.  On the one hand, the rational hand, I know that most likely if someone were to break in during the night, they’d be there for money or possessions.  As I previously mentioned, there’s not much to steal unless you’re a toddler and I’d happily give a thief anything they wanted because nothing is more important than my family’s safety.  (Allow me to add that right now the country folk are thinking I shouldn’t have said that.  They’re thinking now I’m practically INVITING thieves.  This is their mindset.  It’s a little bit crazy.  I can’t live like that.)

On the other hand, the emotional non-rational hand, I am the type of person who has to think step-by-step through the worst possible scenarios ahead of time, so that I know they’re not actually as bad as they seem and so that I can be prepared if they do occur.  So, I made Adam teach me how to use the shotgun.  Say what you want about gun control and gun safety but if someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night, a gun locked up and unloaded in a gun safe in the basement is worthless.  (Ridge residents’ line of thought: “DON’T TELL PEOPLE WHERE YOU KEEP THE GUNS, IDIOT!”  Note:  I said where I don’t keep them.)

The first day wasn’t much of a challenge, but I did realize that sticking around the house for 7 straight days without seeing any other people or doing anything away from home was going to drive all of us (G$, Bella and me) crazy.  So, I made plans to take the crew up to my parents’ house the next day and hang out, go to church, etc.  The first night, I was doing just fine until my sister texted me, trying to be thoughtful and asking if I was ok and if I was scared.  I said well, I wasn’t scared until you reminded me! 🙂  As if on cue, the dog runs to the door leading into the garage (which I have just locked both locks on AND double checked) and sits right in front of it, whining and growling.  She only does this when someone is at that door.  Freakin’ great.  Again, rational brain says “there are 4 locks between outside and me and I just double checked them.  No one can possibly be there.”  Emotional brain says, “But what if there IS?!  Shouldn’t you at least CHECK?”  So I grab my phone, dial 9-1 and have my hand on the 1 (just in case), say a little prayer, open the door (I think my eyes were probably closed) and quel suprise…nothing is there.  To be fair to Bella’s delicate sensibilities, she still seemed to think she heard something and checked the whole garage with her hair standing up on end.  Either way, I think we were both glad no one/thing was out there!

That’s when I came to the conclusion that I can’t keep being such a scaredy cat.  If by some freak coincidence, a random evil doer got into the house, I would shoot them.  (Happy Ridge Rats?  I’m warding them off!) You can’t really miss with a shotgun.  (It took me three tries to type shotGUN instead of shotFUN…Freudian slip?)

The rest of the time Adam was gone we went to the zoo, out to lunch, to the movies, swung on the swings at the park and generally had a lot of fun.  G$ even got to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days while I cleaned the house.  Naturally, on the days I was kid-free and thus able to clean, I came down with this awful summer cold/allergy thing that’s going around.  Man, does it knock you on your ass.  Yuck.

The moral of the story?  I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see Adam walk through the door.  The house is clean but I am filthy.  My clothes are covered in snot.  My snot, the dog’s snot (she has allergies too) and now G$’s snot because he’s coming down with whatever I have.

Also…I’m tired.

 

 

 

This single parenting stuff is HARD.  Major props to those of you who do this full-time.