What if... - Talbert Zoo

…it were just me and my five kids. My husband travels a lot, in fact he is out of town today and yesterday was our anniversary. Anyway, when he travels I worry about his safety and the unthinkable. This time he is driving instead of flying. Statistically more people die in automobile accidents than airplane crashes and I have had a few friends get killed in car accidents, so of course I worry. I know I shouldn’t and I need to remain strong, but the what if is still there.

So, what if it were just me and my five kids. Could I handle this? For a long time I thought that there is no way I would be able to handle being a single mom of five. If you read my last post my children are known to not listen to their mother. I’ve taken parenting classes, read parenting books and tried all the advice from the experts, but they are still stubborn and will do whatever it takes to get their way. So when their dad is out of town the kids are at their worst; usually.

This time it was different. I don’t know why but the kids, especially my little boys, actually listened to me when dad was out of town. As I poured my coffee this morning I thought long and hard about the last two days with him away.

I only had two incidents with the kids. On Wednesday evening it started to rain and the neighbor kids were out on their bikes in the rain. While I was scrambling to get the kids’ toys in the garage Parrot, Kitty and Monkey ran out the door. I told them three times to get inside and get out of the rain before they finally listened and stayed indoors.

Last night, Kitty thought it would be fun to play with the blinds in the dining room. I told her to please leave the blinds alone. She asked why so I told her. We rent and the blinds do not belong to us. Therefore, we need to take care of the blinds. If they brake then we will have to pay to have them replaced. After that explanation she finally left them alone. Ten minutes later she did the same thing with the blinds in the playroom. When I sent her to her room for deliberately disobeying me she talked Parrot into going with her so they could play.

At clean up time, last night Kitty again said to Parrot, “Let’s play instead of cleaning up.” She got sent back to her room.

Now I am sitting here in front of my computer once again with this thought. What if it were just me and my five kids? Could I handle it? I think with a lot of prayer and sacrifice I could. I am a strong woman and my sister said to me once, “Cascia you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” I will never forget that. And she is right.