The Mommies' Diaries…Parenting, One Blog at a Time.

Mothers of one child I owe you an apology. I must admit, I have never walked in your shoes for more than 24 hours at most. My first baby turned out to be babies so I have never been a mother of one. In my twin moms group, we’d refer to babies born one at a time as singletons, with only a slight mocking tone. As we pushed our double strollers and discussed our futile attempts to feed both babies at the same time or get them on the same sleep schedule, we’d stare with envious eyes at moms who could wander through Baby Gap with one tiny baby strapped in a baby carrier leaving one hand free to hold an iced latte.

Twins are hard, yes. I know that one baby at a time is hard too. As my twins got older, I definitely started to see the benefits. For instance, built in playmates! Lucky for me my twins enjoy each other and have always played well together. I was never nervous sending them off to preschool since I knew they at least had each other. When my singleton son came along my girls already had to share their mother, so one more sibling was not a huge deal for them. And if you are going to have more than two children, twins are certainly more efficient! Two kids for the price of one pregnancy.

But back to my apology. For two weeks in July my twin girls were at sleep away camp, leaving a mother of one seven year old boy for the very first time.  This was going to be a cake walk.

Actually, it was not a cake walk. Yes, the house was quieter and cleaner.  There was less laundry and far fewer dishes to clean up. However, how does one cook for one child?  Do you make an entire box of macaroni and cheese for one kid to have five bites? Turns out it really isn’t that easy to scramble one egg at a time when you are used to scrambling up to five at a time. All my meals were slightly off since I had to cut every recipe in half and doing math in my head is really not my forte.

I’m pretty sure that my son missed his sisters too. Every day he had to sit thisclosetome on the couch and my usually somewhat quiet son was non-stop chatter and questions. I think he was bored.   I played more Connect Four, Battleship and toss the football in those two weeks than I did in my entire childhood. Being alone with one child was… intense.  My usual refrain of take it outside and play for a while felt a little mean if I was banishing him all by himself.

So, mothers of one, I am so sorry for thinking you have it so easy. I don’t know how you do it.