I'm No Cleopatra

"Seneca observed, mothers are never afraid for themselves, only for their children."

I am a single working mother once again. Dh went out of town last week, flying cross country on a red eye flight in the middle of the night. Like his previous trip to Kansas, there had been little warning. A casual, "I have to fly to Florida this Wednesday" and he was gone, once again leaving me to struggle with last minute childcare arrangements and a calendar full of family style events to which I would now be escorting our almost 5 year old twins by myself. Never mind that my work schedule and our social agenda had been planned for several months. I had to flip the mental switch in my mind from the reassured vantage of tag team parenting to the more scary single mom perspective of survival mode parenting. And, being the helicopter parent that I am, I kicked my worrying into high gear. Our expectations were abruptly disrupted as my husband's very noticeable absence impacted everything from bedtime routines to preschool drop offs. Would we get to bed early enough? Would we get to school on time? Would I get to work on time? Some of my worst fears have indeed come true. Night after night my mischievous twins have taken advantage of my single working mother's guilt; they have insinuated themselves back into our "family bed" and pushed back their bedtimes later and later. Every morning, my repetitive mantra of "Hustle, hustle, hustle!" as I shuttle them out the door hardly reflects the type of quality time I want to spend with them. Most worrisome to me, however, is that my son has started having pee pee accidents in his pants almost every day since my husband has left. I have no doubt that this is a direct result of dh's absence.

I want to complain. A LOT. I really do. But as I wrote earlier, the ship of self-pity has already sailed. (See "Man Up, Mom!") Furthermore, when I look around for sympathetic shoulders to cry on, I find that most of my closest friends have already been living lives of single moms as those of us who live in northern California pay a dear price to enjoy our beautiful California sun and lifestyle -- we have sacrificed our husbands on the high technology altars of Silicon Valley. My friends have fireman husbands who regularly spend 48-72 hours away from home on a weekly basis, husbands who travel to China or India or Germany for a week or two each month, or, most commonly, husbands who work right here in Silicon Valley from 7 am until midnight every day and are too tired to participate in parenting for the few hours that they are awake at home.

So I have kept the proverbial stiff upper lip, put my best face forward, and kept every appointment and engagement on our calendar. I am marching along like, well, every other single parent before me. We've had play dates, lessons, birthday parties, BBQ's, and impromptu dinners with friends. Despite a couple of interrupted late nights (my son's nightmare during one night and my daughter's ear ache during another) we have not missed a single day of school. And though I have not complained, per se, my friends all know that I am alone these days and they have been wonderfully sympathetic without being indulgent, which is exactly what I need. We've hung out at each other's houses for hours chatting about our kids just as if my husband were here. I've shifted my grocery shopping and subsequent cooking to a more organic menu with more fruits and vegetables. I've stocked up on art supplies and taken great pride and pleasure in watching my children's portfolios grow. The pinnacle for me has been watching my daughter draw picture after picture of the three of us together, me and the children, all with smiles on our faces and butterflies and flowers surrounding us. 

The last time my husband left town, I was reduced to tears after the first week of single parenting. This time, smarter and tougher, I am determined not to let my fear defeat me. Like Cleopatra, the quintessential working mother of twins (and then some), I plan, maneuver, conspire with my allies, and subvert my enemies (okay, I don't really HAVE enemies, but if I did I'd subvert them!). True, I don't have the fate of an ancient civilization resting on my shoulders. But then I also don't have the extensive childcare resources and opulence that she did. And, honestly, I prefer it this way. I can't imagine exchanging the smiles and songs and gentle touches of my children for anything in the world, even the power and privilege of ruling over an empire like Alexandria or Rome. As history will be the ultimate judge, I am predicting that my ending will be somewhat less steeped in misery than hers. Undoubtedly, Cleopatra has left her indelible mark on the world for perpetuity. I am certainly no Cleopatra! But then she is no me.


In Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff digs into the history books to share with us who the true Cleopatra was. As a member of From Left to Write book club, I received a copy of this book for review. You can read other members posts inspired by Cleopatra: A Life on book club day, September 27th at From Left to Write.

Running on Fumes

When my boy/girl twins were born, I experienced the same mixture of joy, dread, and anticipation that most other women feel when they realize, for the first time, that they are actual mothers with all the weight of responsibility that the title entails. Just as I was forewarned, the first year was a blur. "Baby brain" made me forget almost everything besides my name. And despite following the admonishments to "sleep when the babies sleep", I could not shake the fatigue that seems to have permanently lodged deep within my bones.

A bevy of well-intentioned mothers encouraged me over and over telling me, "Don't worry, it gets better as they get older." Of this population, there was a subset who egged me on with, "Wait until they are walking; it will get much easier then." My mother was quick to correct this piece of misinformation. I regretfully concur with my pessimistic but sadly correct mother. Once my children could walk, they could suddenly run -- away from me and in opposite directions. It wasn't any easier than carrying and breast feeding them in tandem and now my fears of injury weren't based simply on insecurities about my own abilities; I now had a whole wide world of uncontrollable variables into which my stumbling toddlers many MANY times waddled headlong into.

Once they had learned to follow instruction (somewhat) and they had finally developed sturdy "sea legs" (the kind that don't cause me anxiety watching them climb down a steep uneven bank into a rocky stream unassisted), then I started to see the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel." They began to play more harmoniously together. I heard less crying and screaming and more conspiratorial giggling and secret conversations. They started spending hours (okay, maybe ONE hour) together in a bedroom playing make believe, constructing fantastical stories of imagination that would make J.K. Rowling proud. Their physical coordination rapidly developed and I no longer had to hover over each of them fearful of unintentional physical mishaps. (Intentional mishaps were another issue altogether, as in, "Mommy! He hit me on the head!" or "Mommy! She pushed me!") There were still bumps and bruises and, my all-time favorite, when my son somehow broke his nose on the play structure at preschool, an event that was oddly unwitnessed by ANYONE. Still, they could pee in the toilet, dress themselves (with cajoling), and eat unassisted (when motivated). I thought I had finally entered the penumbra of the sweet spot in parenting. They were still young and adorable yet I was no longer their only hope for survival in this world.

And then my husband left me.

We had been struggling along financially for a while so when the opportunity came for me to increase my work days and since the children's dependence on me was rapidly dwindling, it seemed like a viable option. My unemployed husband was frustrated by an unfriendly job market and expressed his willingness to be a SAHD until he could find suitable employment. Unfortunately, the nature of MY profession follows the motto "In for a penny, in for a pound." My work hours steadily increased as my husband's job prospects became more and more grim. Just as I was coming out from under the fatigue and pressure of "perfectly parenting" (HA!) my young helpless progeny and grooming them into self sufficiency and resilience, I shouldered an equally heavy burden of a stressful job and maternal guilt as I watched my children shift their previous "Mommy" loyalties to my husband. It seems I couldn't win for trying.

Then, lo and behold, my husband DID finally get a job. In Wichita, Kansas. He received the official offer on a Tuesday. By Friday, he had packed up his essentials into our SUV and he was gone. I was suddenly faced with an unchangeable work schedule (under contract until July), new childcare challenges, and all the tasks of household management that are more easily handled with two people rather than one. This ranges from who does the dishes at the end of a meal (me), who makes the meals (me), who shuttles the kids to activities (me), who takes out the garbage (me), who does the laundry (me), who bathes the kids and fights the good fight at bedtime (me) ... You get the picture. While my husband is languishing in a temporary residence 1600 miles away from us wishing we were with him, it is difficult for me to muster up an ounce of sympathy. That would require my exhausted brain to actually form a coherent thought.

There is only so long a person can endure repetitive stress and extreme fatigue. I believe this is why one of the most effective methods of interrogating prisoners of war is sleep deprivation. I was burning out. I vaguely recall an old Bill Cosby skit that I had once heard. It is a hilarious monologue about his father's car. In his typical exaggerated self deprecating manner, he describes how one day his father came to him very irate because he (Bill Jr.) had used his (Bill Sr.'s) car the night before and then returned it with an empty gas tank. Bill Sr. sticks his son's nose by the open gas tank and asks him to smell for fumes. That's pretty much how I feel. My gas tank is empty. I've been running on fumes. Most days I am in survival mode, mechanically shuffling from one task to another. I would probably notice how stiff my back and neck are from the constant pressure except my entire body aches all the time. My back and my neck are a drop in a sea of pain. And my mind feels like it is constantly swaddled in cotton; my life is a fog right now, the proverbial "new baby blur" -- only my children are not new babies. They are four and a half years old. It is a cruel twist of fate that has landed me here, just as worn out and overwhelmed as when my children were first born. There is a horrible resentment brewing inside me somewhere I am sure; I am just too tired to find it.

In a fit of nostalgia and curiosity I searched for the old Bill Cosby skit on YouTube. I had not heard it since I was a teenager. Here's the funny thing: I had remembered it wrong. When Bill Sr. sticks Bill Jr.'s nose by the open gas tank and asks him what he smells, it isn't fumes. He smells nothing, NOT EVEN fumes.

Considering what I've been going through, yeah, that feels about right.

This is an original post to Year of 4s.