I’m going to start today’s blog with the statement that if you’re a single parent, and you got that way through no fault of your own, you have my deepest sympathies. I say that because as of today, I am officially NOT enjoying being a parent.

The kids have been on and off sick for nigh on 4 days now. While CareerMom was in Vegas last week, I had the boys and was lucky enough to only have to clean up puke one day. Since she’s returned home, we’ve had three days of puking, cranky 11 month old and whiney, pukey 3 year old. And I gotta tell ya…I’m over it.

To make it worse, when I got home yesterday to relieve CareerMom from her day of watching the sick kids (and BTW, I was feeling really sorry for her until our oldest spilled the beans that Mimi came over and watched them while CareerMom went to the grocery store and whatever else she needed to do. And let me also mention that all last week while CareerMom was gone, the best I could get out of Mimi was an invitation to dinner on Friday night.), our youngest was in bad need of a nap and didn’t want to go down. So I listened to him cry for about 30 minutes before interceding.

Asleep in my arms as I rocked him, the moment I tried to put him in his crib, he woke up screaming as if death itself was wrapping its boney arms about his little body and squeezing him. Knowing how badly he needed to sleep, I tried to leave him in his crib and TRIED to ignore his screaming.

Having survived that, we put him in his bed around 7:15 because he was just out of it. He awoke at 8:23 screaming again and nothing would calm him down. Now, this is where I officially lost it.

I got up out of bed, put on my clothes and left. I just left the house. I could not take it anymore, and this is where you single parents get all the kudos. You can’t do this. You can’t just leave. The best you can do is walk outside.

Luckily, good judgment got the best of me and I drove to the local drug store and picked up some earplugs. I returned home to find him still screaming and CareerMom giving him some Tylenol. At some point in the next hour he finally wore himself out and slept till 4:30 when he got a diaper change and a fresh bottle.

But frankly, I’d rather put in a 15 hour day than go home and deal with that again tonight. I’ll say again that it’s amazing that the human species exists at all. I honestly don’t know how people raise more than a couple of kids.