Tales of a (briefly) single mom of twins

My husband went away to work for two days. So, for two days I was a single mom to my twin boys. While this is definitely not a special feat, I thought you might find my stories of the last two days entertaining.

I have always had such profound respect for single mom’s but after these two days I feel they should be nominated for Sainthood.

Day 1: Hubby is here in the morning long enough for me to shower, and for him to change the boys out of pj’s and into clothes. He left for work and I dropped the boys off at preschool.  Not two minutes in the door and I realized that everyone, including the teacher had a nasty cold.  Fingers crossed that my boys were already immune to said cold.  Drop the boys at 8:45 and rush to school to teach at 9:00.

Teach a class, have a meeting and during break run back to school to pick up the boys to bring them home to a babysitter.  Start boys lunch, give babysitter instructions, run back to school.  Teach some more, have another meeting, then head home.  Decide that since the boys have had a sudden foot growth spurt I should take them to get new shoes.  Notice their noses are running, pack extra Kleenex and head to the mall. Boys are hungry so decide to feed them dinner at the mall.  Get them a chicken bowl with brown rice and veggies + an orange juice (to combat runny noses).  Sit down to eat with the boys.  They eat quite a bit, I give them some orange juice and all of a sudden one of the boys starts drinking the orange juice like he has never had juice before.  He drinks and drinks until his face is a little purple from not breathing.  He breaths, says thank you, gets down from his chair and proceeds to run around the table in the food court.  He jumps back up to my lap, and not 3 seconds later begins to puke all over everything.  Me, him, the table, his brother’s leg, the food, my purse, you name it, covered in puke. I quickly whip out the wipes in my purse and try to clean off my poor crying boy.  I get as much puke off me, off the boys.  I am thankful they had their rain jackets on!  I am surprised no one comes to help me or even offer anything.  I presume this is because they think that my children have bubonic plague or something equally horrible and respect their desire to stay away from puke.  I put the boys in the car, head to our local drugstore to pick up some medication and pedialyte just in case this is the beginning of the stomach flu.  As I walk through the store with the two boys, all of us smelling horrible, and looking equally as bad, people literally turn around and walk quickly in opposite directions to get away from us.  It is like a horror movie. “The Family Covered in Vomit Invades the Drug Store”   I get home, feed the boys crackers and water, bathe them, start the laundry and when I finally get them into bed I breathe a sigh of relief…and then after cleaning the house and finishing the laundry I go to bed myself.

The boys wake a couple of times in the night for water but seem healthy.

Day 2:  Boys wake up CRAZY HUNGRY after not having much dinner so I can barely get their cranky, crying selves downstairs and eggs made before they dissolve into a total meltdown.  The boys definitely have runny noses, which I wipe many times in the hopes that nursery school will accept them because I have no back up plan for work.  Drop them off happy and smiling to school and rush to teach my classes.  They have a great morning, I pick them up at lunch and stay home for the afternoon.  I have people over for a meeting while the boys are napping and then I enjoy the afternoon with them.  A babysitter comes over at 6:30 for me to go and work out.  She puts them to bed and I get home to find that my husband is home!  Yay!

It was crazy.  Probably not as crazy as other families have it, but crazy nonetheless.  Not sure how I feel about doing it all over again next week!

What crazy single parent stories do you have?