Breakfast in Bed/ On my Prayer List: Single Parents!

I have been sick for two weeks. Make that two months. It has been a pretty bad cold season this year, and I am ready for it to be over.

The kids and I were sick the middle of January, and apparently recovered, but got sick again in mid-February (see "Miserable Cabin Trip" for more details) and finally I recovered not too long ago.

I was healthy for maybe a week, and then felt a cold coming on again. I exercise, I eat healthy, I take vitamins, and I get lots of rest. Last year I was amazed at how healthy I was, and I attributed it to working part time, getting more sleep, and being under less stress. My sick record this year throws that theory out the window.

Last week Tim was out of town for 4 days (the second of three weekends in a row), and now I have added to my prayer list all the single parents out there. I don't know how they do it. On so many levels, it is incredibly hard. Only God can get them through.

So, I worked myself to death, trying to get the kids to school, get my work done for teaching, taking care of the house, and. . . now that I think of it, that's about all, but throughout the week, I was sick, and I knew I needed to take a day off to rest and get better, but I couldn't because that would mean going to school to make sub plans, and I didn't have time for that. So I pressed on.

When Tim is gone, I have 40 minutes to take Ethan to his school, drive back to my school (which is less than a mile from my house), and prepare for the four classes I teach.  I had to stay up late each night to be sure I had my plans completely ready for teaching because time would be extremely limited to do any last-minute plans once I got to school.

So, on Wednesday, I realized on the way to Ethan's school that I had forgot to put on make-up.  It was pretty bad, considering I was already looking ill.  BUT, I knew makeup was the least of my worries because I had to get to school to set up the scavenger hunt that my kids were doing in geography class. THEN, I realized that one of the papers that I needed for this lesson never printed the night before.  SO I could risk it and hope that I still had the paper from last year (but that would mean sifting through a huge file folder of papers about Europe) or race home after I dropped off Ethan, reprint it, and rush to school to somehow get the scavenger hunt stuff ready by 9:15. 

WELL, somehow it all worked, and I even was able to get my make-up on while the paper printed, and I ran around the school stapling up the papers for the scavenger hunt, and at one point the PE teacher asked if he could change one of the papers that said "southwest corner of the gym" so it would actually BE in the southwest corner of the gym, and I was like, "Yes!! Please!  I'm running behind and I couldn't even orient myself to remember which was the right corner so I just went for it and figured the kids would just get it and I could make them feel incredibly smart when they found my mistake.  So, yes!  Please. . . fix whatever you need to."

Anyway, Tim returned on Thursday, and I had already planned on taking Friday off so Tim and I could work on the house. It was a productive day, even though I could have used a day of rest instead of racing around cleaning closets.  (You should see the closets, though.  They're pretty cool.)

Saturday night I slept on the couch so I wouldn't keep Tim awake, and could hardly wake myself up to help Ethan when he came downstairs for breakfast. Finally I convinced him to go get his dad, and when I finally pried my eyes open, I talked Tim into bringing me breakfast in bed/on the couch. It was so nice. Kate joined me, and Tim brought her breakfast too. Good times. It was snowing outside, it was the weekend. Lovely.

Well, I've had to take two days off this week due to strep throat, and now the kids are getting it too. Spring weather, please chase all the germs away!

All this to say. . . please look for ways to help single parents.  They need it.