Lessons in Sole Parenting

Looking after the kids by yourself is a lot like running a marathon. You sidle apprehensively up to it, not entirely sure you've got the stamina for it. Once you're doing it you just grit your teeth, eyeball the finish line and force yourself to do it through sheer bloody-mindedness. There are times when you're sure you won't make it. It's bone-dissolvingly tiring and as soon as it's over you swear you'll never do it again. You toy with the idea of never even jogging again, even when you're late for the bus. And two days after that you're enormously proud of your achievement and that insane little part of you whispers in your ear..."That wasn't too bad. I could probably do that again..."

This is not at all a criticism, a mere statement of fact, but Charles does not understand what it's like to be left alone with the kids. Since I'm breastfeeding he's never had to watch them both for more than a few hours. He has no idea what it's like to do the parenting thing solo for a whole day, let alone a weekend - no clue how awful you feel when you're on the verge of losing your temper and they say, "You're so mean Mama, I want Daddy". No idea how hurtful it can be to do your best to fill the void left by your partner and still wind up with a child sobbing "I just want Daaadddddyyy" into your shoulder come bed time. And all of that is peppered with, "Daddy would let me do it," "Actually I think I'd like to wait for Daddy to do that" and "Mama, can you make Daddy come back sooner?"

So while Charles is sympathetic, he's not really empathetic and he does tend to go away quite often*. Death metal concerts, football games, business trips, etc and good ol' yours truly gets to watch the kiddies while he's gone.

Despite having looked after them fairly recently while he went on a business trip and again while he completed my brother's buck's night, when the opportunity to go and see the AFL grand final came up I knew that if he managed to get tickets I absolutely had to find a way to get him there. I tried my hardest not to think about having to look after the kids by myself while we found a way to make it happen.

Within a few hours of getting home with them on the Friday night James was running a temperature**. He was cross with everything, lashing out with his little hands and all he wanted to do was sit on Mama and cuddle. Fresh from a day of school and sugared up from a party, all Madam wanted to do was play with her unwilling little brother all the while talking at a million miles an hour and spilling everything that came her way. Tipping them both into bed was challenging, but enabled through the use of Panadol, warm milk and stories. I myself was in bed not long after them.

Saturday was an exercise in martyrdom. James was still sick. Madam had cabin fever. There's absolutely a reason there are usually two parents. Because right around the time you feel sure the only way out is to drown them in the bath you can flick the towel at your partner and mutter "It's your turn." Of one thing I am certain - single parents deserve a bloody medal.

All Saturday it felt like I did nothing except tend to one child or the other in between trying to clean the house. Getting food, arranging drinks, cleaning up spilled drinks, ending the argument over whose drink it was, changing the television, fixing the television, explaining why we don't drink out of toilets, changing nappies, changing clothes, rescuing the dog, rescuing the cat food, rescuing the contents of the garbage bin, rescuing my son from the bathtub, explaining why we need to keep the bathroom door closed, fishing the remote control out of the toilet, explaining why we need to keep the toilet door closed, for the hundreth time, at the top of my lungs.

On Saturday afternoon my Dad landed for dinner and a bed. By this time I was completely frazzled and on the verge of screaming things like, "Why do you need to breathe so loudly anyway???" The situation was instantly improved by a fairly tired Opa antagonising the kids and mimicking them whenever they whinged. This gave me whinging in stereo. It did not improve my mood.

The thing that irks me the most about these little sojourns into the world of single parenting is that you never, ever get credit for managing to get the kids, house and pets (not to mention yourself) through to the other side in one piece. From Dad's point of view you've done your usual job with a bit less help and as far as the kids are concerned you've been a bit more on edge than usual so we'll take Daddy now that he's back, thank you so much. Daddy is the favourite, we've missed him so much and Mama's so mean because she yelled at me about something to do with the toilet door.

Lots of things hold a marriage together and in every marriage one or both of you are sure to think about leaving at least once. Most of the time there's something that makes you stay. For us that something is one simple rule. Whoever leaves the marriage has to take the kids...and the other one gets to keep the house. On weekends like this one I dream of alternatives to this arrangement and I have nasty revenge fantasies about divorce and shared custody. The lure of a week-about custody arrangement is more tempting than a Latin man who can salsa could ever be.

Despite this little rant on the darker aspects of single parenting, I did actually have a pretty good weekend. Sunday was a lot better - we made cupcakes, played and Charles came home early so we could have a late picnic lunch in the park. Having managed to clean the house on Saturday I spent the afternoon gardening and the house wound up in a better state than it's been for many months. I felt almost normal again by the time Sunday ended. I'm pleased with having made it...and swearing I'm never doing it again. At least for now.

* As far as I'm concerned.

** I may not have mentioned this but whenever Charles goes away for some reason one, or all, of us gets sick.

Customer Service WIN

Recently I have discovered a fantastic new restaurant - Zambrero. This place serves up the most amazingly fresh, tasty and HEALTHY Mexican I've ever eaten at a reasonable price and I quickly decided it would become our fall back for nights when we're not up to cooking. So on Monday night we headed down for some tasty Mexican and as we're waiting in line I felt James stiffen in my arms. When I turned to look at him he was holding a red little hand out and blinking in shock. The tears and squeals started immediately. For a second I had no idea what he'd done but it quickly became obvious that he'd reached out and grabbed the sandwich press which, when opened, came up above the glass partition.

As he started to cry I whacked his hand onto the cold bottle of Vitamin Water I was holding and he calmed down almost immediately. I kept his hand on the bottle and he seemed happy enough, so I assumed that the burn wasn't that bad and that the cool bottle had fixed things. But by the time we got home the tears had started again, and escalated, and when I finally prized his hand open under the cool water of the tap I could see blisters forming on his fingers. Unfortunately he was getting more and more distressed and we quickly made the decision to take him to the hospital.

By the time I got him there he was hysterical, his small body stiff with pain and his breath ragged and catchy in between the screaming and the huge gulps of air he was trying to choke down. My happy little guy was clearly in a world of hurt and I was slowly unraveling.

No matter how disconnected and sociopathic you are, your kids will be your Achilles heel. I am sure it's some sort of biological instinct thing because there's no way it's rational. My son has a minor but nasty burn to his hand but in my head he needs skin grafts and months of rehabilitation. He's going to be scarred for life. He might lose his hand. Naturally, it's all my fault. I cry while I hold him and the nurses attended to his rapidly-swelling hand. Mentally I flay myself alive for not realising he could reach something so dangerously hot, for failing to see how badly he'd burned himself...basically for being a bad, inattentive Mum who has allowed her son to be maimed.

Somewhere in all of this the nurse and I manage to force medicine down his throat and, about half an hour later he begins to calm right down...20 minutes after that and he's giggling woozily and laying back in my arms, clearly stoned five ways from Sunday. This is PainStop Night - a codeine concoction that has somehow been approved for littlies. His fingers and palm are swollen and blistered but he no longer seems bothered by it and he's clearly on his way to dreamland.

By the time I get home we've been at the hospital for two hours. Mentally, I'm wrecked. I'm also furious with myself and that stupid sandwich press. In a frame of mind we're going to call "something less than reasonable" I fire off an email to Zambrero's head office relating the whole thing to them. Here's a copy;

"Tonight my husband and I brought our family to your Belconnen store for some tasty Zambrero goodness. As we waited in line my 14-month-old baby son started screaming and I realised that he'd reached over and grabbed your (obviously very hot) sandwich press and burned himself badly. I've just spent the last two hours in emergency with a baby with badly burned fingers. He has blisters all over his fingers and the palm of his hand. I briefly flirted with the idea of sending you a photo but decided that that would be incredibly mean and totally counter-productive. Now the whole reason he was in my arms was to help him stay out of trouble. At first I spent a lot of time mentally whipping myself over what happened (and believe me I still am) and then I thought, why on earth would you have something so hot within easy reach of ANYONE without a glass panel to protect it or a sign to warn people?

I will give you a call to follow up from this email but, basically, I would really appreciate it if you would address this so no one else winds up burning themselves. I can't begin to tell you how horrible it is to nurse a screaming baby and be completely unable to relieve his pain. I would love to know that this will never happen to anyone else. Thank you for your time."

I think I got the balance between "totally psychotic mother bear" and "can we not fix this" just right. I am not proud of this email but in my defence I was very tired and very upset. I was not eloquent or polite, I'll grant you.

Anyways, in my head I brace myself for the "we're not liable" brush-off that I am 100% convinced will be framed in an email along the lines of "you really should have been more careful because your son is your responsibility, not ours".

I am pleased and ashamed to admit that I was horribly wrong. By the next morning the CEO of Zambrero had written to me in person. Here is his email;

"Good evening rebecca,

This is stuart cook, the ceo of the zambrero group. I will fix this immediately and please email me your address and I will send you a letter of apology and if you would be okay to call me so I can find out the full extent of the situation and make sure nothing like this happens again.

My mobile is XXXX. Please feel free to call me anytime tonight or tomorrow.

My deepest apologies,

Stuart Cook
Chief Executive Officer
Zambrero Group "

What a class act! Stuart's not lowering himself to my level. We have a genuine apology, a promise to fix it and all of it probably legally the equivalent of admission of guilt. If Stuart's lawyer saw this he would have had a fit and then tasered Stuart for even contemplating sending it. This was followed up by a phone call later in the day to check on James, reassure me that all Zambrero stores had been checked and perspex ordered to be installed in every store that had the same issue so that it would never, ever happen to anyone ever again. Charles went back to Zambrero tonight and, true to his word, Stuart has fixed the issue in less than 48 hours. Can you believe that businessmen like this still exist???

I am humbled and awed by this man's ethical, human approach to what was an enormously traumatic experience for us. The term "litigation" has been bandied around by people who have heard about this and I'm 100% sure that it crossed Stuart's mind the instant he saw my email. He could have taken a very different approach. He could have told me it was my fault for not being more careful and refused to address the problem. He could have...but he didn't.

When it comes down to it, we would probably have an excellent case for compensation if we decided to sue Zambrero. But the reality is that this was a genuine accident. I have no doubt that they had no idea that someone could be hurt the way James got hurt. Once he touched that sandwich press the damage was already done. No amount of money would have taken his pain away. No amount of money would have stopped the nightmares I had all night or made me feel better while I sat nursing him in the hospital.

But knowing that the same thing will never happen to anyone else does make me feel a lot better. Knowing that when I buy my next burrito my money will be going to an ethical business that cares about its customers makes me feel better. Learning that there are still people and businesses out there that value people more than the almighty dollar has been invaluable. Stuart has won us as customers for life. A big thank you to him and Zambrero for their concern and their efforts.

A little photo of the poor little hand the following day... blisters on his palm, all four fingers and his thumb. Poor little guy...