Single-Momming It: My Beautiful Detour

It's not constant, but I hear a lot of, "I don't know how you do it with THREE kids, all by YOURSELF!?"

I'm not by myself.
Yes, I'm a single mom.  My home consists of me, a six year old, a three and a half year old, an almost two year old, a crazy mouse who thinks it's his mission in life to escape from whatever enclosure I put him in, and possibly hundreds of tiny Sea Monkeys. 

I like my home. 
I love my kids.
As of right now I tolerate my pets.  :-P  :-)

I live states away from family and the friends I grew up with.  Sometimes I miss them dearly.  I hate that some of them feel pain because I'm further away than what makes them comfortable.  In other places I've lived, Virginia, California...  I've found pseudo families...  People have taken me (and Austin at the time) in and we were part of their family.  I miss them too, but they're even further away than my blood relatives.

I love my family.
I love my friends, the ones who are just like family, the ones who I grew up with, and the ones that are right in the town I live in now.

I don't have a lot of friends where I live now.  I don't think I need a lot though.  Since having more than one child it seems the new friends I make typically have children and husbands.  :-)  I love spending time with them while their hubbies are at work.  I love seeing their kids grow, through Facebook and in person.  I love that my kids are friends with their kids!

I have noticed/realized that my friends with kids who are married seem almost as "single" as me when it comes to raising our kids.  Not all of them, and yes, they get a few more "breaks" than I do...  but I get "breaks" with other things.  And it almost seems to me that in being single, I have more opportunities to interact with more people and my kids are exposed to more as well.  I know plenty of people who are with someone have/can make many opportunities to socialize and be around more people than those they live with.  Just as often I believe, though, that when you (or I, to be more specific) have someone I am perfectly content to live in a bubble with that someone.

...I went to see some family and friends in Wisconsin in the beginning of the month and on my way home there was a detour.  I was so nervous b/c I didn't have a map specific for the area, my phone wasn't in service, and it was just me and the kids!!  The detour signs were all for a highway that was parallel with the one I wanted to be on, but it wasn't the number for the one I wanted to be on.  SO, I wanted to be on 59, but 59 was closed where I needed to be on it, all the detour signs were for 45...  not for 59.  I wasn't positive where I was going to end up.  I knew I was really close to Kansas, I just wasn't sure when I was going to get their, or which way was going to lead me to where I wanted to go.  There were a lot of hills, and there were a lot of curves.  It was completely unfamiliar territory!!  I went really slow because when you can't see what's ahead of you, well, you don't know!!  I would go up hills and all I could see was the sky and the fields or trees beside me and I didn't know if the road dropped off over the hill, I didn't know if there was a curve right away, or a tractor or a huge truck coming from the other direction, or a deer...  There could have been anything! 

Eventually I found a town and in ten minutes I was over the Missouri River and in Kansas City, Kansas.  I couldn't believe all that excitement was so close to an area I know fairly well.  I got to thinking...  Everyone should be forced to take a detour to get to where they want to go!  Haha...  I have an adventurous spirit, what can I say.  :-)  Well, being the thinky person that I am, I applied my "detour quote" to real life. 

Being a "single" mom is a detour...  My kids, (don't judge me) have been detours...  My LIFE has pretty much, mostly been a detour...  and it has been BEAUTIFUL.  Sometimes I feel so lost, but I know where I want to be.  I DON'T know if I'm on the right road all the time.  I do know what direction I want to go, and I know, most of the time I'm pretty close.  :-)