1) Single parenting effing sucks. We effing suck. That we got to this place, at all.
2) Attempting single parenting on vacation with kids really effing sucks. I say “attempting” because I can’t imagine succeeding at this endeavor. It is a very special flavor of loneliness, single parenting on a family vacation. It took two people to make these children. Now there’s only one at any given time—one to chase them around, to apply sunscreen, to make sure they have clean clothes, to keep them safe around strangers, to scold them for slipping out of sight. It is the way it is, but I don’t have to like it and they certainly, certainly never have to like it.
3) On vacation, I catch disappointment on one’s face, melancholy on the other’s. Just Mom, this time. I can’t be the two particular people that they so desperately want to be waving to them on the bumper cars. One at a time, they seem to be figuring out. It will always be one or the other parent, never both, not really.
4) Mark my words: they need at least two people. Each. Maybe your kids are a different story, but mine remember what they are missing. Exactly. They are working hard to forget. But they still remember. They don’t have to care if it was good for us. All they know is that it was good for them, and that’s something to be honored as truth.
5) Being a young kid of divorced parents really effing sucks. I won’t let them say “effing sucks,” so I’ll say it for them: it really, really does.
6) And I must add that first-grader bedtime tantrums really really effing suck, after seven nights of single parenting on vacation with kids. That sucks for everyone within earshot.
7) Being the Bad Cop really really really effing sucks. Always.
But Haters and Smuggles? You win. Always. You suck the hardest. You’re totally right. God loves you best and you know everything and you always make fabulous choices. Good work with that Golden Rule thing.
9) I have managed to keep from crying all week. I tried, hard, to Be a Fun Mom. I tried too hard. I did not come close to always succeeding.
10) And right now, right here? I am either going to type “effing sucks” over and over, or I am going to lose it and collapse from exhaustion in my car, draped over the steering wheel, weeping in my sleep.
11) When she says, “You say we’re driving you crazy, but you say we’re the best thing that ever happened to you. How can they both be true?” my heart dies a little.
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