Joys of Single Motherhood

In November I had shingles. I got off pretty easily and I was surprised by the number of people who were instantly sympathetic--very sympathetic. Hell, even my crusty blue-blood editor expressed concern. The shingles went away in about a week and the pain was mild. In December, the week before Xmas I broke my left fibula near the ankle. That was only painful when I fell off my crutches--usually on the grand granite steps leading up to friends' big houses. On Thursday last, I woke up at 0300 in the worst pain I have ever experienced. It was centered on the left side of my torso, right over the kidney's territory. I changed positions in bed. No change. After ten minutes I knew I needed the ER. Sure enough, it was a kidney stone . It was located high up and it was large. Very large. Again people-mostly nurses--were instantly sympathetic. "Kidney stones are more painful than childbirth." I heard this a half-dozen times. I have no experience with the pain of childbirth

My daughter takes the world's longest showers. It must be genetic. In the good old days when her father and I were married we hosted many parties. He was always still in the shower when our guests started to arrive. It drove me nuts. And now I am my own father because I'm the one who pays the water bill. I hate to waste water and a shower longer than five minutes is practically criminal in my book. Like my father before me I have been known to rap on the door and "That's long enough! Get OUT of the shower!" But no more, because it's scary. Kid 1 told me this morning that when I yell like that, it scares her. And she was so upset the other morning that she cried. I remember being startled by my father's hollering but I never cried. I hadn't remembered that feeling until this morning--being scared and then rushing to finish. So no more yelling about showers. I felt awful that I'd made her cry. It never occurred to me. I find it difficult sometimes

I've been thinking about the idea of kids as "projects"--the idea that at the age of 16 or 17--your child is basically a small adult and as such your child-raising project is finished. The kid is on his way into the real world.Your job now is knowing when to let go and then letting go. Kids this age are busy with life.There are college applications, class schedules for next year, landing a part-time job, figuring out the summer internship, etc. etc. And for us at least, those decisions are Kid 1's to make. She just got her SAT scores back and she did well. She has always done well on standardized tests and from the time she was little I knew that her SAT scores would be high. I was right. The best part is that I got to say "I told you so" and she didn't roll her eyes. (Her success is due mostly to a genetic quirk, that's all. For some reason, she intuitively picks the right bubble to blacken. Her father has the same odd talent. Go figure.) We kn