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baking

Solo Parenting Day 3

The house is now as dirty as my hair. I’ve sharpened my knives because Alexander requires endless amounts of fruit. He has a sweet tooth and just today ate a pint of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, half a small watermelon and then all his regular food. He just sort of sits down and inhales it all watching quizzically as I slice my hand open.

I’ve decided that my cut hand is my son’s fault because I still can’t sleep. In addition to missing Mr. G I have Junior the wonder poodle who has issues with boundaries. The first nights he just slept of Mr. G’s pillow and last night he slept on my leg. I do believe that Junior’s core temperature is somewhere around a hundred and fifty fucking degrees. I suckled a quarter of a Xanax at midnight so I could sleep through the overly affectionate dog and the taste of it is so revolting that I ended up brushing my teeth in the middle of the night and then I realized I was brushing my teeth all wrong because Reddit told me so and it must be true so even with Xanax there was no sleep for me.

I have to be up at 6am with Jane. Not because she needs my help but because I don’t like her waking up at 6am and being the only one awake. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. It just seems like something a good mother would do, like baking cookies. Which I did at 9pm last night for Jane’s film teacher’s last day.

I baked snickerdoodles and I used organic kirkland brand butter. I’ll throw the rest of it out as it’s white and not very yellow and tasty like butter ought to be. I renewed my Costco membership for the cheap gasoline and top rate trash compactor bags. There are no compactor bags in existence that can rival the Kirkland brand. Of course I now have ceiling high stacks of roasted seaweed and I’m buying milk in bulk but it’s 2% and tastes like shit because everyone knows that the only way to enjoy milk is whole milk. The only whole milk Costco has is not organic and I’m pretty devoted to Horizon so I’m drinking watery milk and wondering why I don’t just say fuckit and drink whiskey. So I did. And maybe that’s why I didn’t sleep so well too.

There are two ways to make snickerdoodles. I can make them quickly and efficiently with zero mess on the counter or I can teach my kids to bake. These snickerdoodles took about an hour and I railed against terrible recipe writing when the cinnamon sugar called for three tablespoons of sugar and three teaspoons of cinnamon. Everyone knows that three teaspoons is a tablespoon, right? Right?! I question yelled at my kids. And they sort of looked at the ceiling because my sweet children would never roll their eyes at me.

I didn’t make anyone’s bed or even do the dishes. I just sort of did my best in a limited way and tried texting Mr. G a few times today but he’s in overdrive work mode and return texts came four hours later when his meetings were done. How do you even have a four hour meeting? I mean 30 years ago when you could sit and smoke and drink I totally get it but just sitting there? I’d be tweeting about what everyone was wearing and planning my dinner.

I am certainly not cut out for corporate life. I’m also certainly not cut out for solo parenting.

We have another week to go. I’m sure in a few days feral cats will set up camp in the yard and squatters will move into the living room. Or maybe I’ll get my groove. It’s more likely that the squatters are coming. I do have extra snickerdoodles for them.