Sheesh

What do single parents give up in order to be a good parent? I think I would have to give up 1. fun stuff with my kids or 2. any free time/fun stuff for me or 3. healthy meals/exercise or 4. any housekeeping/home improvements whatsoever, but I have the feeling I would just do a half-assed job of all four of those. It annoys the heck out of me when anyone says to me, "Oh, I could NEVER do that!" in regards to parenting twins/losing my mom/being a nurse/whatever, so I won't say that. I'm all GIRL POWER in that I can and will do what needs to be done, but oh man. I hope A doesn't go anywhere anytime soon. Plus, I sort of like the big lug. 

 Anyway, today was another morning of VBS for E and L while C and I were at the Y. Because of Y budget cuts, my Wednesday morning class has been shortened from one hour to 45 minutes, so I went upstairs to the rowing machine for a bit. Someone had turned them around and I could watch the old men playing racquetball. It was more fun than what I normally watch: people coming up the stairs. I watched racquetball for fifteen minutes and I could not figure out the rules. I'm going to assume they were scrimmaging.

We picked up the girls and spent a little while on the church's preschool's playground. Then we went home and skyped with A. It's fun eating lunch around the table with the computer in his place. I feel like we're on The Jetsons or something. Then I showered and we went to have my stylist fix E's hair. Her stacked bob was cute, but it still swung forward into her face all the freaking time and my thought was a layered shag would help with that. She added a bunch of layers and razored it. It looks totally adorable and I hope the lovely people at Great Clips can duplicate it. My stylist charges twice as much for kid haircuts.

We went to karate, ate spaghetti with jarred sauce, and I let them all watch TV while I cleaned and put away laundry. That last part is what led to the first paragraph of this post. Also, as I stirred the sauce, I thought about how I LIKE jarred spaghetti sauce. This is one area in which I am not a foodie. I add a few seasonings and onions and OF COURSE garlic, but there are so many "OH GOD, NOT JARRED SAUCE" people out there and I am not one. If you want to make me from-scratch sauce (and, yes, I know it's easy and delicious), I will happily eat it. But if you want to serve me jarred sauce, I would scarf that down just as happily.

And because I'm insane, I just packed a picnic lunch for all of us. I am going to do the VBS/Y thing tomorrow and then feed the kids (and myself) in the car on the way to the beach. We'll spend the afternoon there and then I will shower us all in the beach locker room and make us presentable for the VBS picnic at 6. The VBS picnic which will involve all my nightmares: small talk with people I barely know, bounce houses, lines for cotton candy and popcorn, and games. Essentially, lots of distracting noise and juggling of various child requests and attempts to be polite to acquaintances. All with NO ALCOHOL.

Comments

[kris (lower case)]

so...what is your favorite jarred sauce? as for making your own...my mom used to can jars of spaghetti sauce from our garden (like a pretty big 1 acre+ garden with 250 tomato plants among other things....) and while i am sure it was good i really don't remember it being OMG good. and i remember the pots and pots of sauce bubbling on the stove top for days... somethings i liked buying in a store from a jar.. spag sauce is one of them..

[AmyinMotown]

I hate all tomato sauce and wish I didn't, because pasta with jarred sauce is so easy, delicious (to everyone who isn't me) and healthy. I buy it sometimes if i know I am having a week with lots of late meetings, etc. because Paul can feed it to the kids so easily and they all love it.

(also, thanks for your comment back to me on last week's post. Things have been better this week. I've been trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour so I have some reserves and not making any threats I am unwilling to carry out immediately).

[Andrea]

Uh, I'm 75% Italian and I not only like jarred sauce but I like RAGU jarred sauce (what can I say - it's made locally!). I doctored it up a bit and I do make my own sauce frequently but I can't help but love the jar :)

[Amy F]

I make my own sauce (until I run out of home-canned tomatoes mid-winter) but I can't make it taste as good as jarred. I think I need to cook it down longer because it's the lack of thickness that gets to me.

My kids refuse to eat tomato sauce from anywhere (well, Peter will reluctantly eat it on the side sometimes), which annoys me because I thought I was the pickiest kid ever and even I ate sauce.

[Sam]

I would love to make my own sauce one day - and it surprises me that my family never has, considering my grandparents usually have tomatoes in their garden. (Still, pasta + tomato sauce is not considered Southern cuisine...) I looove jarred sauce and if I'm not splurging on the vodka sauce then I'm scooping up the Kroger brand that's usually on sale. I really LIKE the Kroger brand!

Your comment about feeling like the Jetsons is awesome. I can just SEE it and it is like the Jetsons.

My thoughts about single parenthood, besides the fact that it's super hard and single parents have my TOTAL respect. In some cases, like people who have kids solo or adopt on their own, I guess they never miss having that back up or partner in the house. (Or on the way home after work...) Do you notice a difference in your girls' behavior after A has been gone for awhile? I swear I can tell when Thomas hasn't had enough time with his daddy, because of working late.

[Tommie]

You know, I needed this. As much as I bitch about my husband, I'm so, so glad that he's around and I don't have to this parenting thing on my own.

I think you're handling this week of solo parenting wonderfully. My kids would be jealous if I told them all you're doing with yours. :-)

[Heather]

There's nothing wrong with liking jarred sauce. I'm part Sicilian and grew up with only homemade sauce and I do still like jarred sauce. I very rarely make it from scratch.

Good luck with the VBS picnic. Sounds like something I would handle better with a little glass of wine too!

[El-e-e]

I just discovered (because my MIL used it) CANNED sauce. Hunts. So old-school, right? But I actually Really liked it! Mix that with a jar of Paul Newman's, say, or Prego, and I don't even need any additional doctoring. #notafoodie

[RebeccaL]

This post started me thinking and instead of filling up your comment section I wrote a post on my nearly dead blog. Thanks for the thought provoking post! http://domino32x.blogspot.com/2011/07/single-parenting.html