sprinkle doughnut

Tonight I f*cked up...I got angry at the Pea and yelled at her, and she didn't deserve it. I hate when I do that...I hate that I get mad at her when what I am really mad at is myself and my life. She didn't want to go to bed, and I wanted her to; after I read her her books and tucked her in she got up and went running down the hall, and instead of laughing it off or just going and getting her, I yelled. She went to bed upset and now I am upset. What I want to do now is wake her up and apologize, but that would just be selfish, so here I sit, writing about it.

Being a parent is hard...being a good parent is really damn hard...being a really good parent all by yourself: nearly impossible. The saying "it takes a village..." yeah, it does. I have found that single moms tend to do one of three things to manage the raising of their kid(s) if they can't afford to hire help: they 1) get a man, any man, and latch on for dear life (not usually a good idea and tends to leave one alone again, down the line, and looking for another one) 2) enlist the help of the grandparents (usually the best idea, and often the most feasible...in my case, not so much) or 3) gather up other single mommy friends and form a "village" of one's own. Dancergirl and I have taken this route and formed ourselves a little family. We haven't taken to living together or anything, but we are like sisters, and our kids like siblings, and I don't know how I would be making it right now without her.

Not only do we take each other's kids on a regular basis so the other can work, run errands, date, or just be alone, but we hang out together a lot and talk, while the kids play. We talk about the usual stuff girlfriends talk about, but we also talk about how scary it is to be doing this alone...how nice it would be to have someone else do the dishes, just once...or how great it will be when the kids are old enough to help with the laundry. We talk about not wanting to settle or take the "get a man, any man" route, but how easy it would be to do some days...and we talk about how we just want to be good mommies. We want to play and have fun with the kids, we want to provide them with a nice safe life, we want to help them grow up to be good people...just like married mommies do.

I guess, just like any parent, married or not, what I need to do is strive to do better next time. I can't go back and not yell, even though I wish I could, but I CAN apologize to her in the morning, and give her a big hug and kiss...and then take her to DD for a sprinkle doughnut...wouldn't it be great if all of our f*ck ups could be fixed with a sprinkle doughnut?