How Do Single Parents Do This?

On taking care of the baby "alone."

My husband went to his best friend’s wedding in Florida this weekend, so I assumed sole responsibility for the baby and dog and cat for a few days. He's back now (Sorry, murderers. You’ll have to get me next time.) but I have questions.

First of all: how do people do this alone for years and years? I made it through the last four days with a heavy assist from friends, amenities available to a person living in a major city, and the resources to access said amenities. I am to watching a baby “alone” for four days what a Forbes op-ed contributor who took the simple money saving steps of no longer ordering takeout and receiving a $200,000 inheritance from his grandmother is to buying a house “on his own” by age 25. I took care of the baby “alone” and nobody ended up crying or in the emergency room because I was not really alone and because I was lucky on top of that.

Still, it was a challenge.

We briefly considered going to the wedding together, but there was no way I was taking a baby on an airplane to Florida. Leaving her back on the West cost wasn't an option; she's too young for either of us to be comfortable with that. Me taking her alone for a few days seemed like the best option.

Before Josh's trip, I was absolutely terrified. Standard new mom anxiety didn’t help things, it just made my fears more creative. What if I fell down onto the utility knife I was using to cut peel n’ stick wallpaper and bled to death on the floor of the office? How long would Juniper cry before somebody came and helped her? How could they feed her without me? What if the person taking care of the baby after I died found the emergency backup formula that I bought before she was born but the formula turned out to be part of the bad batches that were recalled for being tainted with bacteria? What if she got sick? Why hadn’t I checked?? Etc. You get it.

I over-prepared. Before Josh left, I went on an emergency Trader Joe’s run and bought a bunch of stuff that I absolutely didn’t need but figured I could eat if her phase of “not napping, at all, ever” continued. I let a few people know the deal, just in case the aforementioned knife accident happened. I was kind of a bitch to Josh in the days leading up to the trip, because in the season finales of Worst Case Scenario TV I was writing in my brain, none of the disasters would have happened if I hadn't been left to my own devices.

None of the bad things happened.

During my long weekend alone with a three-month-old, friends brought some food and provided some much-needed non-baby companionship-- because as much as I love Juniper, I can only spend so many hours per day singing songs to her where I change the word "lady" to "baby"-- i.e. "Luck be a baby tonight!" "Baby Stardust sang her songs," "Who's that baby? (Who's that baby?)" – before I start to feel insane. Two friends who are both 30 weeks pregnant stopped in, separately, and we talked a lot about labor and how scary it is and I tried to be reassuring but honest at the same time. Juniper bounced next to us in her Baby Bjorn, somehow knowing to be on her best behavior when there was company around.

Then there was the dog of it all. Our dog is not a low maintenance dog. Luca has completed 12 mile mountain hikes alongside us and attempted to play fetch with strangers at the summit. He goes with Josh on long runs and once played with a frisbee for so long that he gave himself heat stroke and had to go to the dog hospital. He’s the sweetest, gentlest, most devoted dog in the world, but he could easily pull the whole family on a sled and needs at least two sizable walks per day. There was nobody else to watch the baby during said walks. The cat can’t babysit. These factors meant that I had to either walk the headstrong and physically strong dog while pushing our stroller over the wacky off-road sidewalks of Highland Park/Eagle Rock or walk with the baby strapped to me in her carrier, which is also dangerous because Luca sometimes tries to trip me to get my attention if I’m not throwing the ball enough. On day two, I threw in the towel and boarded him at his dog day care for a night. This cut down on the varieties of poop I had to clean up and the possibility that I'd be dragged into the street, which took away quite a bit of stress.

(The cat acted the same way she always acts, content to hang out on the periphery as long as she was getting fed regularly. I used to complain that my cat was a needy asshole; boy would time turn me into a fool.)

With just me to look after the baby, I had to become a master of seizing the moment. The second she’d go down for a nap, I’d sweep the floor or take the trash out or throw a piece of bread in the toaster or something. There was no fuckaround time. I knew that if I fell too far behind I’d never catch up, and Josh would return home to a pile of trash and cat hair shaped vaguely like his house.

Josh and I are both freelancers and have infinitely flexible schedules, which, to people working 9 to 5’s might sound like a dream, but in actuality the life of a freelancer means that there’s no boundary at all between “work” and “not work” and so it feels like we’re always sort of working, sort of not working. Occasions where either of us is definitely 100% focused on work or definitely 100% focused on not-work are rare due to this lack of delineation. Unfortunately it’s not a great idea to have two people who are always sort of working also both be sort of looking after a baby that will be rolling over on her own any day now, so we take shifts being responsible for meeting her immediate needs.

It is uniquely draining to not have those breaks, even over the course of a few days, and it’s not great practice for me to go for several days in a row without doing any writing. On Josh’s final afternoon away, our postpartum doula had some time available and took a four hour shift with Juniper, and I got to shower and leave the house wearing a shirt that wasn’t stained with puke comprised of my breastmilk.

I was nervous about managing the weekend without Josh, but feel a sense of accomplishment for handling it, and so much gratitude for the people whose small gestures made a big difference. I'm glad I asked for help and didn't try to be a hero. I feel proud that I got through it. As with most things parenting so far, I couldn’t until I had to, and then I could.

But here's the thing: what allowed me to get through four measly days without a coparent isn't sustainable. I couldn't simply put work off forever, or subsist on food that friends brought over, or send the dog to day care indefinitely. I can't wrap my head around how single parents can do it, and I'm not going to be able to stop wondering about it for awhile.

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