Home Alone

My husband left for a business trip this afternoon, so I am solo with the kidd-o. It's very tiring to be alone with the baby. No breaks. Mommy 24/7. Gives me an idea of what it would have been like to be a single parent.....if I had gone with Plan B.

I've only had three really serious relationships in my life. The first, Brian, was a disaster. We started dating when I was very young, and I had never been in love or anything. He was almost ten years older and really did a number on me. Drove me to obsession about my weight. Cheated on me. Lied to me. Ruined my ability to trust men for a long time. Uh, we broke up and got back together about one hundred times, and it really messed me up. Took YEARS to heal, and I ended up moving to another city to fully recover and start over.

Relationship #2 was Bill. Don't get me wrong -- I went on lots of dates and had a very active social life. I was always the good girl, though, and never slept around or anything like that. When I met Bill, I really thought he might be "the one", and things moved pretty quickly for us.

Unfortunately, Bill was recently divorced and although he swore he was "over it".....well, he wasn't! He had his own emotional damage to recover from and still hadn't. At the one year mark, things really went sour, and we called it quits. More emotional recovery....and the declaration that I was never going to find the right man!

It was at this time that I decided that I would just have a child on my own if I wasn't married by the time I was 35. I wanted a baby badly enough and refused to give up on that dream.

Thirty-five came a few years later, still no man worth marrying, but my fear of giving birth was overwhelming. Plus, I didn't feel "old enough" to be a mom. I decided to wait until I was 38 instead! Then, if I were still single, I would have a child on my own and do the single parent gig.

Thank GOD my Plan B was never needed. I met my husband, Andy, in July 2005, a few months prior to my 36th birthday in October. We were married on my 37th birthday, and Nicholas arrived the following August in 2006.

The hubby is gone for four days. These little "tastes" of being a single parent make me very thankful for my husband and stepchildren. "Free" moments to shop or get a massage or sleep in are precious as gold. I take full advantage of them even though I miss my little cutie pie every second we're apart.