okay i'm done with it

i should have known.  i should have known because before i'd even left the bedroom this morning at 5:43 am, i dropped the very old-5$- ikea -best- yellow -rubber- alarm-clock- ever, on the floor, which while it did bounce, still managed to finally break irreconcilably. 

it's the only clock in the house. 

so while i was trying to hurry the kids, with the clock reading "0:13", and getting no where because everyone wanted to discuss whether the clock was in fact finally broken, i should have known it would be one of those days. 

i think somewhere today i realized that i am in fact, like that bounc-able clock, finally done with the single parent marathon.  i did pretty well, i faked it for two weeks, but now, i'm reading "0:13"- whatever time that is.

somewhere around 0:26, i announced, "can anyone tell that i'm grumpy today? because i am! so for that reason alone, can you just brush your teeth!!" i'm not sure why i was in such a hurry.  i didn't really have anything i needed to do... oh, except drop my kids off at school so i could have a moment of quiet. 

we got there are 7:11.  fo' reals'.  i felt kind of bad- but also kind of lucky that i was now free from the constant stream of questions and fighting about topics that don't have a right answer, because they are relative, or not factual but based on opinion, and thus there is no "right" answer or the right answer depends.

then several errands later, several hours later, and several schillings poorer, i went back to pick them up.

by the time we got home from school it was super hot outside and i had the beginnings of a headache.  rats.  when i called mike hoping to hear of all the treasures that i'd left behind, that i was waiting for him to uncover and bring back to me,  he told me all i'd left was one dress- no boots, no bags, no faux-fur vests. rats.

when everyone was finally in bed and the house was quiet, i realized it's not them, it's me. i'm tired and its not their fault.  and as tired as i am of being a single parent, i'm sure they are even more tired of me being the single parent.  so now that i am more aware, i hope that i can breathe into my day tomorrow, and this last week, and not be grumpy, but be who i want to be for them.  a mildly sane, loving, patient parent- or at least i hope i can fake it.