8/04

Last night I decided to unpack some of my things in my bedroom. I've lived in my apartment for four months and there are still piles of things to be sorted and put away. I don't really have any 'away' places, but at least now I can see the top of my hand-me-down dresser. There has to be some good energy in that. Some kind of feng shui, lightness of being benefit to settling into a home. Yes, it has rusty water that stains my clothes, my tub, and the bathmat. Yes, the ants have set up a colony in Zac's bedroom where I left the baby yogurt on the windowsill after one helacious night of teething, crying, madness. And, yes, the apartment complex and the surrounding streets don't have handcap-accessible sidewalks, so getting a stroller down into the parking lot takes an act of God and a patient toddler. It's mine, though.

Sometimes people (well - usually Moms with parnters), "How do you do it? How do you do everything around the house AND take care of Zac?" Short answer is: I don't. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to put Zac's bottle in the microwave to heat it up, only to realize that I forgot to put the milk in. I've even started the microwave with nothing inside it, the bottle of cold milk on top of the appliance. I did the dishes last night to avoid the smell of things best left unsmelled permeating my entire apartment. The laundry only gets moved from the washer to the dryer when I start worrying about mold and then sits in a basket until I need to wear it again. It's my way of coping. Well, that and watching bad reality television like, "Design Star" and the marathon of, "America's Next Top Model," on VH1 (Damn you MNS. I really didn't need to start watching that show!)

I also have one HUGE benefit to being a single parent and that is, I have no one to tell me when I should or shouldn't do something or even how something should be done. Vacuum at 10:30pm? Ok. Do the dishes at 4am when Zac wakes up? Sounds good. There is no one complaining when I forget to rinse out my container of yesterday's breakfast of oatmeal and bananas. No one is there asking why I'm so inconsiderate or harping, "Why don't you ever do anything for me?" Everything is exactly in the same place it landed, last time it was touched. Nothing moves unless I move it. I know when I go home tonight, my hair brush will be in the same place on the counter next to the sink, right next to the screws, q-tips, old bottle of nail polish remover, and last week's paycheck stub. Right where I left it.