Solo Mother

A reader posted a rather nasty comment demanding to know what I do all day, as if I don’t work and therefore have no right to occasionally complain that my ex does nothing to support his son. I thought I’d answer that question.
On a weekday, I get up at 6AM. I catch up on the world news, take a shower, and make my son lunch. At 7AM, I wake the King of Everything and make sure he gets dressed, makes his bed, showers if he needs to. I make him breakfast, either eggs or pancakes or hot cereal with fruit. …read more

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Tuesday was my birthday.
It began with an inch of water settling on the floor of my dining room, soaking my rug, ruining my floor. As a matter of fact, my floor is now a champion Hot Wheels track, with death-defying hills and fissures and such that walking on it is a true adventure. 
Then my boss made me cry. As my intern put it to a co-worker, “I don’t get it, I come in and five minutes later…?” and my co-worker smiled and said, “Ah, but she gets here a half hour early…” What a difference 35 mintues makes.
The rest of …read more

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He hollers at me from his room: Mom! When I wear my guitar bottom pajamas, I dream… well, I dream I can play the guitar. That would indicate to me that my pajamas are controlling my dreams.

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I heart Indexed. It’s right up there with xkcd as my all-time favorite, geek-humor site. I might be a single mother, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost my sense of humor… it just means it’s gotten a little more warped over the years.
I came across an image on Indexed that is sure to make sense to all of us as we struggle through this economic crisis with Ramen noodles and our bus passes…

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I love Imogen Heap. She’s got an amazing voice, a turn of phrase that makes the hair on my arms stand on end, and a comfort that has pulled me through breakup and breakdown.
So if you need a friend beside you this weekend, if you have come here because you know the next step is the hardest, and your whole life will change… then take this song and lyrics with you wherever you go, and I hope the melody will lift you to where you want to be.

“Let Go” by Frou Frou (Imogen Heap) Lyrics follow the cut…

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All my life, I’ve felt this vague unease, this keening wail in the back of my psyche that cried, “I want to go home!” Didn’t matter where I was… in my apartment, in a lover’s arms, in the most beautiful spot in the world: some part of me keened and wailed. Home. As I fought through some harrowing times, some depressing and damaging and frightening times, that cry continued, persisted, wove its lonely way though the years I’ve spent on earth.
I don’t hear that voice anymore. Its cry abated the moment I stepped off that airplane from Dubai with my …read more

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Some folks responded to yesterday’s post with a “Right on, sister!” while others were terrified, or thought I was nuts for advocating independence for older children. Have you looked at the map of pedophiles in your neighborhood? some asked. One woman wrote an impassioned rant about shooting in schools — um, that happens in one of those sanctioned places we shuttle our precious cargo to and from every day, how is that about letting your kid ride the subway by himself?
The world is full of bad people! they all cried.
Know what?
It’s really not.

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It’s all about the tribe, isn’t it?
My son has always been a part of a tribe, since he was born. It started out with the mamas and babies we met at the breastfeeding support group we attended every week, sitting in rockers with other new moms, weighing our babes, talking with the lactation consultant about our struggles and cluelessness… from those weekly lifelines, a group coalesced. I remember champagne lunches at a friend’s house every week, with amazing salads and good things to eat, champagne for those that wanted it, and a few hours of laughter and light. We were …read more

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Today is the one year anniversary of the death of my aunt, my mother’s sister, my cousin’s mother. When the King of Everything and I decorated the tree this past Christmas, the tree skirt that graced our floor had been made by her hand (and had miraculously survived the diaspora of my belongings when my ex and I moved our little family halfway across the world). The KoE and I are currently diving into the joy of chapter books, courtesy of a collection of wonderful old books my aunt had, that we now enjoy. My aunt encouraged my grandmother to …read more

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