Solo Parenting

I have always held single parents in a high regard. Watching my mom raise three kids mostly on her own has encouraged me to respect those that, for whatever reason, are walking the journey of parenthood alone. These past two weeks have made me even more appreciative of what they do.

The whole reason we went to Spain was because Joseph's work had a two-week conference there. He was chosen to go and we couldn't pass up the fact that we could go to Barcelona and not have to pay for his travel at least. We talked about me going while he was at the conference so we could avoid a hotel cost. But his conference was from 8am to 8pm or even later every day. Not very much fun for me in a city where I don't speak the language. So we went a week before his conference, which meant I would be back to stay with Ashton for two weeks alone. We survived... barely. Here's what our weeks looked like.

Potty training... we started. We're still in the midst of it (and will be for the next five years!) but we see lots of improvement. I figured I would be the one doing most of the work anyways even if Joseph was home in the evenings. The first couple days made me question if she was ready completely as accidents were happening a lot. I switched back to diapers for an afternoon and she promptly took them off to tell me she had to go "pee-pee." That showed me that she really was ready and I had to go all in. We persevered and she is mostly daytime/at the house potty trained. I don't trust her enough when we go out so she wears a pull up/diaper over her underwear then. If she's with me, she will use the potty wherever we are but if she's at the rec center play area or at someone's house without me there, she doesn't. It's nice to have a break from washing cloth diapers. Until next spring when I start using them again with baby boy. All in all, I would say our first experience with potty training hasn't made me dread it for future children. It's annoying but still better than changing diapers.

Her mischievous smile when you ask her if she has to go to the bathroom.

Swim lessons. We are in the middle of a parent-child swim lesson. We meet two nights a week at the rec center. It is alright. Ashton struggles with doing the activity that the teacher asks her to do and just begs to go down the slide. But it's good for her to listen to someone other than me. I told her it was swim school since she wants to go to school so much. That helped. And she loves her teacher, probably more than me.

Baby shower. We hosted a baby shower for a friend of our's. I purposefully did it while Joseph was gone so it would give me something to do and look forward to. I made everything from scratch except the caramel apple dip. One of Ashton's favorite things is to help mix and bake so it gave us something to do during the week.

I made chili, bread bowls, mini pumpkin pies, and homemade apple cider.

The bread bowls turned out pretty well. It takes a lot of dough to make just a few as they are much larger than rolls.

Outlet shopping. I wanted to go to the outlets this winter yet and I typically go by myself. Since we don't have any open Fridays left for the year, I decided to be adventurous and bring Ashton with me. She did very well. So much that I wouldn't mind taking her again some time. Of course, I planned to find boy clothes but left with mostly girl clothes for Ashton. I just don't love the boy clothes yet...

Less tantrums and meltdowns than I anticipated. Overall, the two weeks taught me to be more confident in my parenting. Before this, I grimaced when I thought about Joseph going away for a boy scout campout. Even one night and I was terrified. Now, that seems like nothing compared to what we did. I can survive waking up with her every morning and putting her to bed every night. We didn't always enjoy it, but we made it through. And I only got ice cream once and out to eat once, so that's a pretty good sign that my stress levels stayed within normal limits for the majority of the time. Just a few more hours and we'll be back to normal again with Daddy home.