Single Mums

So 16 years and one day ago I gave birth to my first child. He was a tiny little thing and I clearly remember the nurses bringing him back to me after all the usual checks and cleaning etc and seeing him laying in his crib with a little hat thing on his head and a tiny nappy that seemed to cover most of his body. Now, well now he’s a great big log of a thing standing around 6foot tall (and still growing) weighing probably about 100kg and needing shoes the size of surfboards. He’s my little man no more.

Yesterday - his 16th birthday. After wanting it for so long, he was able to get his drivers licence - the first step on the road to his being his own self-sufficient man (well at least when he gets his Ps and I let him use the car )

So after I got home from work and with a grin a mile wide on his face he showed me his licence and I threw him the car keys and off we went for a little drive - thankfully I live in a fairly rural town so we could hit the back streets and not worry about other cars but that will come soon enough - with all the driving I do for the kids sport he’ll get plenty of practice - plus he’s been driving around his dad’s property for a while anyway

For now though, I’m gonna go and look back at some old photos and remember how it used to be

Technorati Tags: driver licence, driving, kids, learners permit

I need a time out. I haven’t had a day without kids for I don’t know how long and I’m getting to that point where I just need a break. Yes I’ve had a night here or there where one or two of them have stayed overnight with their grandparents, but never all three at the same time, and even when they stay overnight I still have to run them to where ever they need to go before or after.

The thing it though, that at times it’s not just me, the three of them can only spend so much time in the same house before it becomes world war three. They can’t even talk to each other without sniping. While I’m at the point where all I really want to do is ignore it and them, I just can’t. Unfortunately they’re now too big to send for a time out (not that it ever really worked when they were little anyway) and all they do is yell at each other more. Or ask why I’m not doing anything to stop it.

All I really want is a day without the yelling, screaming and throwing of things. It’s not too much to ask is it?

I try to talk to them, I try bribing and I try laying on a guilt trip, all of which work for brief periods of time - at least until one of them looks the wrong way, touches the wrong thing etc.

I’ve got an early start for work tomorrow, so I’m thinking I may just go to bed now and let them sort themselves out. As long as the police or ambulance aren’t called I’ll be happy.

Technorati Tags: disicpline, single parent, time out

So it’s late Saturday afternoon, I’ve been at work most of the day (after another early start - and a late night last night after basketball) so I’m pretty damn tired. It’s been one of those days.

While I was at work I got a call from my son who tells me that he accidentally turned the power off to my freezer last night before we all went out - I of course didn’t notice it last night or early this morning before I left so everything defrosted - which totally sucked - not only was there water everywhere, but there’s was a few dollars worth of frozen stuff in there that now is no good at all.

Now I’m trying to organise my kids - I have two at home and one at her nanas. One wants to go down there as well - so they’ll both stay the night which means only having my son at home tonight - all that’s fine, but I need to also try and organise it so I’m covered for tomorrow. I have to get my son to his job early in the morning - then one of my daughters to her basketball training - and figure out what to do with the third child. The biggest pain of it all is the timing - my son’s job and my daughters basketball are within 5 minutes of each other but the timing means three trips there and back (a reasonable distance) one to get my son to work, come back - wait an hour or so and take my daughter to basketball, come home and then go back again late tomorrow afternoon to pick my son up. And I really want a sleep in.

Perhaps if I’m really lucky I’ll be able to talk the kid’s dad into taking my boy to his work, which means only two trips there and back for me (after picking my daughter up first from her grandparents) and a bit later start so a semi-sleep in. Here’s hoping luck is on my side and he’ll do it for me. This getting kids to and from is probably my single biggest problem with being a single mum. Expenses aside it’s just a pain trying to figure out who needs to be where at what time and how I plan my routes to get them there.

Technorati Tags: driving, Parenting, single moms, single mum

Wow I don’t know if it’s just me or not but these last few months are really flying. While most of it is probably due to how busy I’ve been at work, I think somewhere in amongst all that, time seems to be zooming on as my little man will be turning 16 in a couple of weeks and I’m having some minor adjustment problems.

It seems like only yesterday that this little 6 pounder was cuddling up with me, a tiny little thing that changed my life. Of course it wasn’t long before he was roaming around following me everywhere I went, listening to me when I talked to him and generally thinking I was the light of his life. His Mum! The one he relied on, listened to and believed in. Even though we crossed paths in those years, having the odd little tiff, he was (and still to some extent is a Mummy’s boy - as most boys tend to be)

But now? well now my little man is not so little anymore - he towers over me, outweighs me and is starting on his new path in life. While he still tells me everything (sometimes there’s somethings a mum really doesn’t need to know) and still turns to me on occasion when he needs something (aside from the usual: money, food and a chaffeur) with each passing day it seems to be a little less.

He has a part time job, so he’s not scrounging off me as much, he’ll probably have a licence within the next month so won’t need my chaffeur services as much and judging by the horde of girls that seem to be following him around I won’t be the main female in his life for much longer. Of all that’s changing though, it’s the getting of the drivers licence that’s really causing me to want time to stand still for awhile longer, I just don’t think I’m ready to have him driving himself around the place.

Ahh well I guess it has to happen sooner or later - perhaps by the time the twins turn 16 I’ll be ready for it.

Well it’s Friday afternoon. I’ve just gotten home from work and picking the kids up from school and now it’s the semi-mad dash to get organised for the Friday evening events. I say semi-mad because unlike last season I now have an extra hour before the basketball game starts. With my daughter going up an age group it now means the games start an hour later.

So tonight I have to get one child to cadets, one to basketball and the other to her acting thing. While in theory it’s easy cause they are all on the way to each other, the hard part is that they all either start or finish at the same time. This is a fairly regular occurance for me - having three kids that need to be in three totally different places all at the same time, and usually I can manage two of them quite easily, it’s getting the third to or from that creates havoc. I sort have it covered tonight - I’ll do the cadets and basketball and my ex mother in law is gonna do the performance for me. It means me dropping my son off at cadets, racing my daughter down the road to basketball (where I’ll stay to watch the game) then hoping like hell it actually finishes on time (which isn’t always the case) so I can race back to pick my son up. My other daughter is gonna stay the night with her nana. For a change basketball and cadets sort of coincide as the bball is a home game - when she plays on the other side of town I have major problems as it means I’m neither going to or coming from the game at close to a reasonable time to pick my son up.

Even though the getting to and from is often a major problem, I wouldn’t stop my kids from being involved in their sport or acting/dancing etc for anything. They love it, they’re dedicated to it and it keeps them out of trouble. My son has had to give up his hockey (my daughter will probably play again next winter) cause he now has to play mens and it conflicts with him being able to work, and while he’s saving up for a car work is always going to come first.

Technorati Tags: kids, sport, travel

Ahh shopping. If there’s one handy tip as a mum that I could pass on to others it would be this. Whenever possible leave your kids home if you need/want to go shopping.

Now I’m not much of a shopper at the best of times. I’m one of those get in and get out as quick as I can types; whether that’s food shopping or clothes shopping I don’t much like it. It annoys me when I see things I’d like to have but can’t afford. It annoys me when people dawdle along in front of me and it annoys me when I can’t find what I want as soon as I walk in a shop. Now magnify all those annoyances by 100 and that’s what it’s like to shop with kids.

Since I became a mum I vary rarely go shopping with my children - or if I do it’s usually a one on one thing if that particular child needs something in the way of clothing etc - I suck at guessing the right size - ’specially when it comes to shoes. When my son was still pram size I used to take him on occasion. But the twins, well I think they came once and that was it - not that they were naughty, but the bloody pram was too big. I’d drop all three off at my parents house and take off to get my food etc.

But tonight, well tonight I had all three with me and I was again reminded just why I don’t take them all at once. Two of them needed more school shoes and the third had to come cause I just wasn’t going to go home from school first to drop her off.

Now the getting of shoes wasn’t too bad - it was the whining of how thirsty this one was and how hungry that one was - since as they explained to me - I can’t expect them to be at school all day and not be hungry or thirsty - me pointing out the lunch I made them, the drink bottles they took or all the water fountains that can be found at school didn’t seem to mean that much. Anyway, we’ve got the shoes and on the way out I bought them a bottle of water just to shut them up (it’s a long drive home.) So the kids are now re-hydrated, they have new shoes so I don’t have to hear about how they’ve got this wrong with them and that wrong with them and I think it’s time to get home. But nope…

My son decides that he wants to check out the xbox games - the one downside of him working - he now has his own money so I can’t use that as an excuse not to go into that shop. He goes in there and the girls whine about wanting to go home cause they’re going to starve to death if they don’t get something to eat soon. There’s a whole big thing about my son not being able to get the game he wants at this particular shop, so I decide to be a nice mum for a change and on the way home we go past another place so I detour so he can have a look there. You’d think I was the meanest, most horrible person on earth when I do this, because he gets everything while I never do anything for the girls. This in turn causes my son to mention how he has to buy everything he wants with his own money - blah, blah blah . the worst part of it all is that the radio in my car has shit itself so I can’t turn the music up loud to ignore them.

Anyway, we finally made it home, the whinging, whining and unfairness of it all has passed and I once again remind myself never to take all three with me at once - at least until necessity forces me to again, probably within another couple of months when they’ve grown out of the shoes I’ve just bought them.

Technorati Tags: kids, shoes, shopping, x-box

When you’re a parent of teens, and ’specially if you’re a single parent of teenagers it truly seems that you spend half your life driving them from one place to the next.

As a single mum it always falls to me to get the kids from point a to b- their dad, may, once in a blue moon, decide he does have time to run them around but it’s sometimes not worth the effort even to ask (that even counts when the kids stay at his place, if they have somewhere to go - sport etc, I have to go to their dads to pick them up and then take them)

Take today for instance.

I left for work just after 5am this morning and finished work with just enough time to spare to pick the kids up from school on my way home (thankfully on those early morning starts I can get someone to take them to school for me) on the way home I dropped my son off at his martial arts (after a detour to my mum’s house so he could get changed) then I brought the girls home with me. In about an hour I’ll have to take off again to go and pick him up, only to come home and quickly feed them all before again turning around and taking my daughter to her basketball training, I’ll stay there for the two odd hours cause it’s just that bit too far away to come home in between. Once she’s finished we’ll get home around 10-10:30 tonight where I’ll probably fall straight into bed (after a 4am rising this morning) only to wake up and have to get them off to school again tomorrow, on my way to work, then on the way home from work I’ll pick them up, go back near to where I just came from so I can take them all  shopping for those annoying things like school shoes - geez I wish they’d stop growing - of course the one good thing about tomorrow being Wednesday though is that it means I don’t have any sport etc to get them too - it’s our one day/night of the week where we actually get to stay home.

This of course brings to mind a really cool, funny and true email I received quite awhile ago about all the mother’s do, and if I ever find it again I’ll share it with you.

Technorati Tags: driving, Parenting, single mum

Well for the first time in I don’t know how long, I go woken up this morning by the sound of rain. It was bucketing down. It hasn’t rained like that here for a long time so it was kind of nice to hear.

Then while I was laying in bed in between dozing and thinking about what I had to do today the thunder started. And that was so loud it actually woke my son up and let me tell you that’s not an easy thing to do.

Of course once the thunder started all I could think about was the fact that I needed to get online so I could do some banking cause I’m down to my last few dollars and still need to do a heap of running around (which means more petrol) plus feed us all between now and my next pay day so the power better not go out.

While living payday to payday isn’t all that unusual for me, it’s been a little while since I’ve been this broke. So I’m annoyed that once again I’ve having to juggle things when it comes to money. Hopefully it’s just a bad patch and I’ll get back in front again soon. Though if nothing else, at least now, as compared to other times I’ve been down to my last dollar, I do actually have the bills paid so I don’t have to worry about getting those nasty letters or the embarrasing phone calls while at work or with friends asking why I haven’t paid such and such yet.

Just watching the news last night and something came on about people struggling to make ends meet and it makes me wonder how if two income earning families are having a hard time keeping on top of things, how the hell are single parents with one income (and sometimes none) supposed to do it. I work, and while I don’t spend money on myself I do spend a lot of extra on my kids - by that I don’t mean the standard feeding, clothing and schooling etc I mean getting them to and from their sport and paying fees etc. with an ex who while he does have the kids occasionally doesn’t actually give me any money toward them.

Like today for instance - it’s Sunday morning so in a minute I’m going to have to get one child to her sport training, while getting my son to his new job (Lol he’s got more money than me) and arguing with the third child about the fact that I can’t afford to get her the new shoes she needs today like I promised cause I just don’t have the extra cash and she’ll have to wait until I get paid again. Which is all well and good, well would be if the training and work were close to home, unfortunately their not. So once I’ve done that I’ll come home for a couple of hours and then turn around and go and pick my son up from work etc. I’m happy that he has a job, in fact I got it for him and honestly don’t mind having to take him to and from - it just pisses me off when fuel is so expensive etc.

Well that’s enough of a ramble for early sunday morning - hell I’m doing well with this NaBloPoMo - I’m two for two so far - here’s hoping I can keep it up.

Technorati Tags: finances, fuel costs, money, NaBloPoMo, thunder