Flying solo

Illustration scanned from The Big ABC Book (New York: Z. E. Harvey, Inc., 1961)

My brother came down for a visit this past weekend; I love when he comes down because it gives me a bit of a break and it's also nice to have another person in the house to talk to and eat dinner with, etc.  While he was here, we made a special trip to the Super Target about a half an hour from the house to see what they had in stock that my local Target didn't (turns out it had quite a bit more--must be why it's so super).  We walked around the store for about an hour or so and I found a few things for Sammy's foray into eating solid foods, like some waterproof bibs and feedings spoons.  We then headed back to the house, and my brother carried his overnight bag up the stairs, huffing and puffing the whole way (I live in a stacked townhouse, so it's about 3 1/2 flights of stairs to reach the main living level).  As he made it to the top, he turned to me and said, "Wow, I have no idea how you do this every day."  All I could do was laugh as I mounted the stairs behind him with all 15 1/2 pounds of Sammy in his car seat hanging from my left arm while the diaper bag, bjorn, and two Target bags dangled from my right.

I'll be honest--the hardest part about being a solo parent isn't the loneliness (though it comes close), it's being responsible for everything on top of caring for Sammy.  The little things wear me down the most, like having to wash bottles every. single. night.  Or cleaning out the litter boxes.  Or taking out the trash.  It's being on house arrest as soon as Sammy's head hits the co-sleeper at 6:30 pm.  Running low on formula or fresh out of eggs?  Too bad-it'll have to wait until tomorrow because I can't leave the house.  After a while I start to feel like Sisyphus; no matter how hard I push that damn rock up the hill, it's going to roll right back down to where I started the day before.  This is why I don't often talk about my experiences in solo parenting; I'm afraid that I'll come across like an entitled, spoiled jerk of a person who doesn't realize how good she really has it.  I know, at least in the "big picture" sense, that this period of my life isn't going to make or break me, but every now and then the daily minutiae threatens to swallow me whole.