Yesterday morning I got a taste of what it would be like to be a working single mother with an 8 month old baby, let me just take a moment to say, wow- my hat goes off to those ladies who do this every day!
7:20am… B walks into the bedroom to tell me that Everly is still sleeping and that he is leaving for work. I pop out of bed like a piece of toast, amazed that it is 7:15 and she is still sleeping… what happened to her waking me up between 6:45 and 7:00? Knowing that we need to be out of the house by 7:50 I walk down the hall and open the door to her bedroom, hoping that the morning ambiance will wake her.
7:25am… I am in the bathroom having a hooker shower with a face cloth and wetting my hair, just as I start brushing my teeth I hear B walk into her room and pick her up (wasn’t he leaving)? He plunks her down on the floor in the bathroom and says see ya later- thanks babe, (secretly I was hoping that she would stay sleeping until I was dressed).
7:27am… she is hungry and not being shy about telling me (of course), I realize that I am going to have to feed her as I do what I need to do to get ready. In the high chair she goes as I mix up her breakfast, am thinking this might be better because now she is contained. I drag the high chair to my room where I take turns giving her spoonfuls of cereal mixed with fruit and getting myself dressed. One spoonful, 2 socks, one spoonful, underwear, one spoonful, bra… until I am done and she nearly is too- aha! We have a system.
7:37am… I sit to feed her the last bits of her breakfast and suddenly I am aware of the towel still on my head. I drag her high chair to the bathroom door and take turns putting product into my hair while feeding her the last spoonfuls of her cereal- thank goodness she choose to cooperate and eat this morning is all I can think of… thank you patron saint of feeding babies. I pause and wonder what would the patron saint of feeding babies be called? Emeril, Rachel, Top Chef? Maybe that guy who swears all the time… okay focus, focus.
7:45am… time to nurse Everly. I thought we might be able to wait to do this until I got her to my cousin’s (who was looking after her), but no, she would have none of it. I am tapping my foot on the floor as she guzzles; said guzzling is partially because I am squashing my boob with my free hand to make the milk come out as fast as possible… I have seen how this kid can throw back a bottle, I know she can handle it.
7:50… we were supposed to be leaving the house at this point but nope, it’s only time to get Everly dressed. Getting Everly dressed is kind of like trying to get a lobster into one leg on a pair of pantyhose without the pantyhose being snagged; it isn’t easy. So we wrestle and sing songs and eventually she is ready to go. I put on her coat and strap her into her car seat.
7:56… I am a pack mule waking out to the car with Everly’s diaper bag, my work bag, Everly’s daycare supplies bag and my donations for work bag… oh and Everly in her car seat- which now officially combined weighs over 25 pounds. I hobble and hop and get half way to the car and realize that I am still wearing my slippers. I trek on despite the slippers, I have come too far with my load to turn back, I am closer to the car than my door. I play put stuff into the car tetris and then quickly run back into the house for some shoes- awesome, we are ready to go and only 10 minutes behind schedule.
8:03am… I am in the car at an intersection and hear my tummy growl, I feel my throat- heechk (a bit dry and pasty), is it possible that through all of this I have not eaten or drank anything, YES. Food I knew I didn’t have, but water hmmm, I took a quick look around the inside of my car and miracle of miracles, there in the cup holder was one of Everly’s sippy cups. I grabbed the cup and tried to get the lid off so that I could down the water inside, yeah, no, they don’t make these lids easy to get off do they. So I started sipping. I learned yesterday morning that it takes a lot of effort to get water out of a sippy cup, so I was sipping hard. I started to feel like I was being watched and sure enough I was. The lady in the car on my left was staring blank faced right at me. I found myself embarrased for a nanosecond and then I took the cup out of my mouth, raised it in a cheers like fashion and drove away as the light turned green… at least I gave her something to tell her friends at work.
8:13am… we arrive at my cousin’s house, 13 minutes late but everyone present and sound. I drop her off without any trouble and head to work. I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly… ahhhh work the vacation day in my week.
Our Little Pickle 