All the Single Parents

Luisa went to Zambia yesterday. More accurately, she left for Zambia yesterday and arrived today. Still - the point is that she is not here. When she is not here, it means that I am here alone. Well, not alone - I am here with the children and the cat. My mission is to keep us all alive for two weeks. I have proven that I can do this but the question is always "With how much grace and dignity?" The key to a successful morning of single parenting for me is to get up very early. This guarantees that I will be able to have coffee without interruption. I will admit that I did not bound out of bed at 5:45 this morning but more oozed out of bed. Bounding. Oozing. Who cares? I got up.

In no time at all, I was on the couch with a cup of coffee and my laptop. I normally read Twitter while having coffee but today I decided to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Everything was going well (except for the nasty issue of the witch casting spells on unsuspecting cheerleaders) until Momo jumped on my lap and dumped my cup of coffee all over me which stained my sweatpants (see exhibit A as evidence). I did not kill the cat because, if you remember, I must keep all of us alive for two weeks in order to win this game and I do so want to win. So, I yelled at the cat and tried to shame her which was quite ineffective.

After Buffy, I woke up the children and packed lunches and made sure the kids got dressed and brushed their teeth and then I made them breakfast and then I packed their backpacks and then I did an elaborate tap routine involving a cane and top hat and then I dropped it low and did a little hip hop number and - for the grand finale - I did a back handspring. Ok...I didn't do the dancing and springing but I did everything else. THEN, I got the kids into the car and to school on time. I even took them to the right school.

Day 1 went pretty well. I hope tomorrow involves fewer coffee stains. If not, the cat gets it.