I’m
not sure if I ever mentioned, but ever four weeks is different for me. My custody schedule with 1stH is rotating
every other week. We co-parent well,
there’s no tension or animosity, and we try to help each other out as much as
we can, so I’m very lucky on that front.
BHE works shift work, two weeks days, two weeks nights. Therefore my life goes as follows:
Week 1
– nuclear family. BHE picks up the gifts
from daycare and we do usual family stuff in the evening.
Week 2
– young couple in love. The gifts are at
their father’s so it’s just BHE and me every evening.
Week 3
– single mom. The gifts are with me, but
BHE is on nights so it’s the mom show.
Week 4
– single lady. The gifts are with their
father and BHE is on nights so I basically binge watch Netflix and have popcorn
and wine for dinner. AKA the week the
house stays clean.
It
took a while to get used to this schedule.
I’d find week 3 crazy and week 4 lonely.
I’ve come to love and appreciate each week for how special they
are. I’m VERY lucky that BHE is an
AMAZING step-dad and handles the kids as if they were his own by blood.
Last
night (it’s currently week 3) the night looked horrific. The littlest gift had an eye
appointment. He’d been complaining about
blurriness at school, but fortunately still has 20/20 vision and 1stH had
booked an appointment for him at 5:30 the same night biggest gift has cub
scouts. Ok, tough, but not
unmanageable. Then I find out that the
biggest gift has an offsite cubs night that starts an hour earlier and ends at
the same time. CRAP. I reached out to 1stH and asked him to take
care of littlest gift eye appointment and we’d work the rest out. After the eye appointment 1stH offered to
keep the littlest gift for the evening, I checked with littlest gift and he
wanted that too, so I happily accepted the help, it was garbage night and my
chore load was heavy.
After
dropping off the biggest gift at the Art Centre (downtown), I ordered the
fundraiser pizza for dinner, picked up the mail, went home, cleaned the rat
cage, did the garbages, unloaded the dishwasher, ate dinner, went back and
picked up biggest gift and came home again.
Normally I’d feel a little frazzled dragging the littlest gift around
with me, but it all went off without a hitch.
Biggest gift had an awesome night at cubs, came home, had dinner, watched
a bit of TV with me and went to bed.
Wow, all that and it was EASY! I
realized managing one less child than normal makes life about 30 x easier
(particularly when it’s only your easy child you’re working with).
Biggest
gift is getting vested into his cub pack next week. When I spoke to BHE about it last night on
the phone, I couldn’t remember the term “vested” so I just told him he was
being jumped in. Ya, I’m THAT mom!
