Okay…I don’t have much time to write because…well because I am a single mom that works full time and likes to have an apartment without vomit and dust bunnies on the floor.

There are some days I think, “Oh my god, this is so easy.  I can’t believe I was so stressed about parenthood.”

And then there are the past two weeks…where I am reminded that my life is a delicate balancing act and if one thing goes, the whole damn thing comes tumbling down.

THE DEATH OF BIN LADEN
Man…I am not an eye for eye person, but I did breath a sigh of relief when I was woken up by a colleague telling me to turn on the TV because Bin Laden was dead.
I shook the sleep from my head…looked over at my little angel and thought, “Well the world is a slightly better place, now that that evil is no longer with us.”

Then reality hit and I said, “Oh sh*t, do they need me to come into work?”
“Not sure, just wanted you to know what was going on and what you were walking into.”

Moments later I read an email from my boss saying everyone should get in early.
“Okay,” I thought.  “I’ll just text Ellie’s dad.  We have gone over this exact scenario (not kidding, I said, “So they catch Bin Laden and I need to go into work…because that is how news people think) and he said he would be over and I’d have nothing to worry about.

While texting him Ellie started crying and I picked her up, discovering that she has a fever and a stuffy nose.

Hours go by, no response from her dad, but plenty of worrying about how sick she might end up from me.

Instead of going into work early, I stayed up through the night following the news and rocking little Ellie.  Oh and I called my mom to tell her Ellie had a fever because I don’t like it when babies are sick.

I headed into work when the nanny showed up at 5:30am, and I got a text from Ellie’s dad saying he was too sick to come over and stay with Ellie in the afternoon.  So I did what any logical person in my situation would do.

I threw my cell phone across my desk in my public workspace.

And I called my mom and asked her to come into the city and help me with Ellie because I hadn’t slept and Ellie was sick.  And my mom did what any good mom does…dropped everything and headed in.

I slept for a few hours when I got home from work, Bin Laden was given the proper burial at sea and Ellie’s fever broke.

All was right with the world.

UNTIL…A BIKE LOCK JAMMED UP MY LIFE…

I am sure you are asking yourself why I just showed you a photo of my stroller…

And I am going to tell you the answer – THERE IS A MASSIVE BIKE LOCK ON THE DAMN STROLLER FOR NO REASON THAT I FIND LOGICAL OR ACCEPTABLE.

Not seeing it?

It is in the shape of a big U and there is a yellow and black bar on the bottom of the picture where THE STEEL LOCK IS LOCKED ON.  To make matters worse, it is jammed in an area that is bending the expensive stroller that means more to me than any car I have ever owned.

How did this happen?  No idea…the nanny put Ellie in the stroller and brought her up to my office to meet me before I headed over to a friend’s apartment, and a coworker asked me why I had a bike lock on my stroller and I said, “That isn’t a bike lock that is a mommy hook…wait, that is a bike lock???????!!!!!”

The nanny insists she didn’t see it when she opened the stroller.  Something that made me very angry.  Because either a) she wasn’t paying close enough attention to what she was doing so she missed the HUGE BIKE LOCK ON THE STROLLER or b) she is lying.

After visiting the friend, who happens to have one of the cutest 6 week old little boys I have ever seen, I walked home getting angrier and angrier about the situation.
The way it was wedged into the stroller meant I could not close the massive device…and in a 385 square foot apartment – the prospect of putting the open stroller in my apartment would mean I could not use my kitchen.  And I am not kidding.

My dad had the great idea of stopping into a bike shop…which I did and I may or may not have sucked my stomach in and batted my eye lashes while asking the bike shop guy for advice.

He happily sawed it off and told me I could pay him with a coffee next time I was walking by.

I know, that’s what I get for flirting to get a bike lock off my stroller.  But money is tight and I love that damn stroller nearly as much as I love Ellie…so I agreed to buy the coffee the next time I walked by.

FEVERS…AGAIN
Later that day Ellie developed a tickle cough…that turned into a massive nasty cough that sounded like the whooping cough public service announcement that is running on TV these days.  And when I picked her up at about 11:50pm, she was burning up and projectile vomited all over the clean sheets and comforter, as well as herself and my hair.

DAMN IT!!!!  I thought back to the lovely Mother’s Day weekend where my sister’s kids came down with similar symptoms and I had a sinking feeling this would not go away easily.

Poor Ellie was so sick and sad and it broke my heart…I fed her and she threw up again…I called out of work and got back into bed, putting a towel over the vomit and completely forgetting about why my hair was sticky.
While rocking her, I thought, “Well at least we got some great pictures of the babies when I was home.”
See great pictures below:

CUT TO SICK FACE…on the way to the doctors:

Good news is that Ellie’s cough sounded worse than it is…but she had a lot of fluid draining into the back of her throat, causing the bad cough, and her left ear had a partial infection.  To prevent it from getting worse, the doctor said she needed to sleep propped up.  Which I happily did…rotating her between the car seat, the boppy in my bed and my chest.

I washed my sheets, she threw up on them again, and I washed them again.

And by wash them, I mean I dragged them to the laundromat while her dad came over for a few hours to help, and let someone else wash them because standing in a laundromat with a kid that has a hacking cough, is throwing up and has a 102 fever is really not fun for anyone involved.

Somewhere in the above situation(s) I found myself asking -

“WHAT THE HELL DID I DO TO MY LIFE???  I THOUGHT TRAINING FOR A HALF MARATHON WAS HARD?!?!?!  BUT GETTING UP EVERY TWO HOURS WITH A SICK BABY IS KICKING MY ASS.

AND IN BETWEEN GETTING UP AND ROCKING HER AND GIVING HER TYLENOL, I FIND MYSELF PUTTING MY EAR ON HER CHEST TO MAKE SURE HER BREATHING ISN’T STRAINED.

I JUST NEED SLEEP, SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP…AND NOW I AM SICK TOOOOOOOO”

(Yes…I was whining in my own head.)

BUT that was yesterday…

Right now, Ellie is napping in her crib…She has been napping on her own in her crib for the past two hours.

And I have unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned and disinfected every surface I can think of, I caught up with a good friend on the phone and managed a quick chat with an aunt that I can’t wait to see in a few weeks, ordered groceries online, called to have the laundry delivered, and I am right back to feeling like I have the world by the balls.

That is until some dumb ass puts a bike lock on my stroller.