Confessions of a sometimes-single mom

I am not a single mom, but I am on my own with my three kids a lot. My husband has the kind of career that takes him to the far corners of the world (He just sat through a tremor in Tokyo.).

And I worry. I worry about where he is, what he is doing, if he is safe. I worry about how quickly he can get home if something happens to the kids. I worry about him missing out on things with the kids.

People ask me why I chose to be a stay-at-home-mom, how I can handle it on my own when they get sick (which always happens when Hubby is on a trip), how I get them to their activities and when I get a break in the action.

Let me just say, without the help of my parents, I couldn’t do or handle any of this. But, when Hubby hops on a big ole’ jet airliner, I go into Function Mode.

With the boys getting older and into more activities I finally had to break down and put a wipe-board calendar on the refrigerator. And every day is full. Cub Scouts, piano lessons, basketball, doctor appointments, birthday parties.

What I did not plan for though – and really, who does and how can you – was my number coming up for jury duty.

I know it’s my civic duty, right to a fair trial, and so on, but can we please coordinate this with Hubby’s travel schedule next time?

Who is going to take the Princess to preschool? Memaw has a commitment already. Who will be home when the boys get off the school bus? My son is sick; he can’t even go to school, where will I take him?

My Function Mode went into overdrive with this added stressor and I realized: this is why I became a stay-at-home mom. Not because of jury duty, but because it is what is best for my kids and for me. (Remind me of that when my little angels are testing my patience.)

Not knowing until 4:30 p.m. the day before whether I had to show up at the courthouse downtown put me into a frenzy.

“Hi, Nona. I might have to bring Princess over in the morning. No, I don’t know what time yet. I don’t even know if I will be bringing her. I’ll have to call you later. Oh, and can you pick her up from preschool … maybe?”

As I said last week, I’m commitment-phobic. I take just a few days at a time because life events come up and things happen. When I do have a plan – usually because I am on my own – I get anxious when the proverbial shoe is about to drop on it.

I find that I’m really appreciating the weekend between the two jury duty weeks. Usually it is, “Yay, Friday! Oh, wait … I’m a mom.”

But this weekend, “Yay, Friday! I don’t have to maybe, possibly be somewhere (for at least two days) and dump my kids on an unsuspecting relative.”