Single Parent

Well my wife went to the big smoke (Toronto) yesterday morning (Thursday) and it's now tonight (Friday), and boy am i glad i have a healthy supply of home brew in the house... i was just going to go to bed, but then i thought about the mighty Mule (Rob Hughes), who i had a good chat with the other night at the SRSS (Super Robertson Supper Show)... much more on that next Tuesday night in another blog. Not trying to get off topic, but rather get into a proper Robertson writing flow where the thoughts are not impeded by anything (proper sentence structure, reality)... well i just took a call from Pockets (my neighbour) and we were talking about beds and the idea of me perhaps getting these 2 free single beds from craigslist (for the twins) and then she mentioned BEDBUGS and now we get to revisit paranoia. I mean i have 2 cribs to get rid of, and there ain't no bugs on them, but you never want to be the loser in that game. Good beds are expensive and our family tree's both stipulate good bedding... you are never mad at yourself for buying good beds.

Jeeze i wanted to talk about how insane it must be to be a single parent... but now we are on a bed tangent. My father always subscribed to good beds, and i was a recipient of that fine forward thinking... unless of course we were on a road trip and pulled into a hotel and dad would spend 10 minutes lying on each bed making sure he got the best bed... which of course was all for naught because we had to move rooms at midnight because some "squirrely" hotel desk clerk railroaded us into a room next to some device that made a lot of noise (hotel air conditioner unit). My mom was horrified, and my sister rolled her eyes, i stood by my dad as we moved rooms.. it was at those times you would get those beauty one liners (man thinks the world is against him... he is just an honest paying customer being screwed by lassitude and incompetence). It's always an odd situation when you have relatives who have no regard for quality bedding who are always trying to have you come down and spend the night... It's hard to say "yea i'd love to come but since you don't have a bed that it's possible to sleep in i'm going to have to decline"... i believe therin lies part of the root of some of the famous family feuds... hopefully families don't read blogs written by failed musicians.

OK the word family got pecked on the keyboard... now it's time to crack the wheat beer we bottled last week and get down to business. Of course a tall glass of ginger wine is not the kind of thing one would normally use to cleanse the palate, but you got to do what you got to do.

actually it's pretty good... my last two brews haven't been my best, but this one i believe could be a winner.

Ok single dad... that's what the title alluded to... single dad a few days after Halloween, is not a good combo either... parenting is never good when the kids have a supply of candy... I mean it's good, just not ideal. On Thursday it was raining and we were hungry so i did the unthinkable... i went to that McDonalds by Hastings and Highway 1... it has a big playground. the kids all ate a Hamburger and drank a milk and played around on the slides and climbing apparatus. There was a woman there with 2 boys who i wanted to punch in the face (the woman)... she had the loudest annoying complaining voice... i believe she was a single mom from the many cell phone conversations i was forced to hear... it's a tough go... but one thing you might want to consider is not loading your kids full of sugar and then yelling at them to settle down.

I think eating properly and routine are the key to child rearing and when you become a single parent you have a mighty task... for me i can keep the kids rolling and make a fairly healthy dinner with most food groups present and then CT comes home... everybody is happy to see her and she takes over the 1 on 1 interaction with the kids... at that point is is something she wants. She loves her family and wants to be involved in a positive way, the kids love the mommy and are overjoyed she is there, and i can somewhat shut off from the incessant needling of my wonderful family.

But as a single parent dinner comes and there is no relief and you don't care who eats what and your just praying for bedtime, and you become less in tune with the reality of the true nature of you kids and more focused on their annoying tendencies... you want to will them to do what's right but you have lost the handle on everything. I could see how this could become habitual where the parent and the children draw lines in the sand and operate as enemies. Even in the best intended scenarios, and especially under the way we live as "consumer" humans, it just has to be unbelievable.

In my situation having 3 kids at such a young age i can't imagine being a single parent... it's easy to handle a stretch knowing it's just for a limited time and having a partner, who for the most part, barring tree pruning, is on the same page as you. You could do insane labour, or intense computations, but to be fresh for your kids who need you the most it really takes 2... at least. You need to see your kids with the mindset of "look at you all cute let me give you a hug" rather than "get away from me before i kill you" kind of attitude.