This morning, I woke up two minutes before my 5:15 silent Fitbit alarm, surprised to feel better after body aches and a pronounced one-sided sore throat the night before. I laid there for a moment, noticing a remarkable upgrade in mental health since trading in NPR for jazz over the previous 24 hours. Not a total news fast- I know we all need to stay politically aware and active and fight our behinds off. But I realized I wasn’t doing anyone any good if I ended up sitting under my dining room table in a tinfoil hat. So I set some limits.
I was deep in a project on my laptop when I heard my roommate call for me, a good 45 minutes before his usual wakeup. This was not the usual, plaintive cry of “Mom, how could you abandon me all alone in this giant bed,” but a defiant, incredulous, “Mom. MOM! MOM!?!?! What the…??”
So, my me-time cut off, I returned to the bed where he said yes, he was OK, and no, he didn’t want to go back to sleep. “Will you play with me?” I tried to explain that Mommy gets up early do get some things done, so he can get up but he’ll need to play by himself. My explanation was not accepted.
I thought I’d start with letting him help me with the laundry. His eyes lit up, remembering that his favorite fire truck shirt was dirty and might now be clean. If he could wear this shirt every day and every night, he would. I’m OK with a kid in a dirty shirt, but it hits a point where you do start to wonder about the mom.
Of course the fire truck shirt was not in the load I’d already started, so we embarked on a long journey of laundry to get that shirt clean and and dried before school. He had not counted on a multi-step process, so there were some moments of deep disappointment resulting in tears and laying spread-eagle on the floor.
On the way back upstairs, we stopped to look out the window of the back door. I pointed out that the sun was coming up. He paused, deeply taking in the sunrise. I said, “Hi, sun.” He smiled and said, “Hi, sun. Hi, sunny!” Then he waved to it. Then he said, “Do you have fire trucks for me? With ladders? And a crane and a backhoe?”
We ate breakfast while we waited for the wash: fried eggs and toast and a banana (for him) and coffee (for me). We heard the washing machine buzzer and went downstairs to put only the fire truck shirt in the dryer. He was super distressed at this point that the shirt wasn’t ready.
We came back upstairs and played with fire trucks a bit. I noticed that while he has at least ten fire trucks of various sizes, plus other trucks and cars and trains and dinosaurs and tools, he doesn’t have any people, other than his almost life-size Baby Matthew. We’re having to anthropomorphize the fire trucks themselves, as if there are no firefighters. Mental note to ask the moms what’s the best type of mini-humans to order on amazon. I told him to keep playing while I quickly dressed myself. This was not approved.
We ended up in the basement, hanging out by the dryer, waiting for that damn shirt to stop being damp.
He went to school in a fantastic mood, in his (really almost dry and definitely clean) shirt.
So that’s us today: mostly fire trucks and laundry with some highs and lows.
(photo from a different day because I didn’t catch one today. Notice the pile of fire trucks.)
XOXO
the solo mama project 
LOVE! Miss you two. Plans soon!
I always enjoy reading how another solo parent gets through parts of the day. Thank you for sharing.
p.s. We like the Lakeshore play people: http://amzn.to/2kwvSON
My E’s new thing is “mommy I want to hit you”. Ugh. And then he hits me and laughs. it’s cute but I also feel like I need to teach him that it hurts mommy and it’s not nice to hit anyone! And a lot of spread eagle disappointment going on over here. We also have sore throats in pit household and I gargles with apple cider vinegar and it is all but gone! Amazing stuff! Tonight I Neti pot to make sure I kick this out of my system. To bad two year olds won’t gargle or Neti! Also speaking of politics….I had Neil gorsuch’s daughter in my class. She just graduated from our school last year! Just ran into his wife a few weeks back and talked about their pending move to D.C. Lovely family. His wife is incredibly down to earth. It was funny seeing her in a dress in TV. Not her normal attire. I think we will be ok with him. We already knew DT wasn’t going to pick a liberal so as far as conservatives go, he is not too bad. At least I have his personal email and I can pick his ear if needed, haha (don’t think I would really do that!)
That’s encouraging re: the Gorsuch family. And thanks for reminding me of my Neti pot! I forget about it but it works soooo well.
Lots of bad grammar up there. I am sure you know what I meant.