Build a Better Boat

This was the first song that I heard as I drove away after dropping the kids off today. It was actually the first time I'd ever heard the whole song, but every time I heard it, I heard enough to know what it was about, and that it made me cry. And today god radio decided to let me hear all of it.

Build a better boat, Kenny Chesney

"Got friends to call who let me talk about

What ain't working, what's still hurtin'
All the things I feel like cussing out
Now and then I let it go
Around the waves I can't control

I'm learning how to build a better boat "

I worry about talking about this because I worry it makes me look bad. I worry it makes you look like a bad parent or bad mom, which I feel like anyway, which I feel like everyone believes me to be anyway. But I need to say it somewhere so I guess I'm going to say it here.

Being a single parent is hard. Getting the hang of it is hard. And I know that I'm privileged to have my parents helping me and I am lucky to have a partner right now, who does help, even if that help gets limited by several factors, including that my daughter just wants to follow me around all the time. But it doesn't mean that it's still not hard.

Their dad does the full-time stay-at-home parent thing and I'm definitely not saying that's not hard either. I know how frustrating and tiring it can feel just after a couple days when one won't listen and the other is throwing fits and no one is happy. Even just a full weekend can completely wipe out everything I have. Even though it hadn't been my plan when I started school, I have started taking on more time with my daughter because of that. He expressed that he was tired and frustrated and needed help and that she needed her mom more. So now I have her all weekend on the weekends I am not in clinicals (unpaid nursing apprenticeship) which ends up being 5 days on those weeks, and then I have her Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday afternoon and evening on the weeks that I do have clinicals. I still take both kids every other Tuesday and some of those weekends I have both of the kids.

The adjustment has been difficult at times. This weekend I have a test on Monday and the only times I might have gotten to study are after they went to bed, but I'm too tired. I just dropped the kids off early, but that was so that I could go into work on Sunday evening for inventory. I have no idea when I will get done. Then I work tomorrow and go straight to class to take the test. Generally, the only non kid or non class nights I have are directly before clinicals. And even with having more time, I don't feel like I get quality time with either of the kids except on the weekends. The weekend that tire and frustrate me are the only times I actually get to spend quality time with them because every other night is really just driving, dinner, bath, stories, sleep. 

And I don't feel like I get any right to bitch or complain. Others have it harder. Others do more. It's harder being the stay-at-home parent. I should have been doing a schedule like this from the start but I spent a year wrapped up in myself and in getting better and now I'm finally being a proper parent.

There is another thing. I dropped the kids off today and  their dad came out to help get them out of the car and their other mom, my son's biological mom's, came out to greet the kids as well. The four od them looked like a family, especially with her as the quintessential Mama Bear,  that her Facebook shows as well. Always working and sacrificing and never thinking of herself. (Which isn't untrue.) They looked like a family. Their son who I feel like it was made clear isn't "really" my son when we broke up, who I don't know how to reach or control. My daughter who often still feels like this crazy beautiful ball of light and energy but not what I imagined my child would feel like, ya know? They looked like what a family is supposed to look like and I was just there on the outside. (Of course, I probably know better than most where all the cracks are, all the ways in which they aren't perfect, but my rational mind isn't really playing a part in this. )

I am getting the hang of it though. If alone, pick parks and playgrounds where the boy-child has less of a chance to get away. But take them to the park, or to play outside, as much as possible. He's a loner and you have to keep teaching her consent when playing with other kids, since she wants to kiss and hug all of them. Car rides ensure naps. Sometimes they won't eat and that's ok. Make sure she doesn't eat too much or you'll be up with a puking toddler all night. Find ways to let her help. I can only manage one child if I'm alone at water parks and movies, etc. Remember all the grocery stores with carts that accomodate two children  (like Aldi.) Give up on making them go to actual sleep or on putting them in separate beds until they're actually asleep. When having both children over the weekend, shower at night to sleep in the next morning. The boy-child will not let you sleep. 

Don't mistake me. I don't want to go back to my old relationship just so I am living with the people I coparent with. There were things that were easier but it isnt what I want for my life anymore. And I don't want to not parent either. I know there is a way to blend what I'm doing in the work on myself and raising these kids, or at least my daughter, if for no other reason than I don't have a choice. But goddamn is it hard. And lonely. And often it doesn't have any good or right answers. And I just need the void to hear me say that.