Singledom

I had the best evening last night baking Christmas cookies with Queenie. We downloaded some Christmas favorites to my phone then blasted them throughout the house as we baked away! The boys would pause their video games for a bite here and there, and occasionally would take a spin on the kitchen dance floor to their favorite songs. It was a delightful night, but it got me to thinking. What did I do before I had kids?

While my children were snuggled all cozy in their beds I sat sprawled out on my couch racking my brain for memories of my former self. What did I do on evenings like this twelve years ago? I would like to say that I spent my free time reading books, volunteering in the community and working as an ambassador for peace, but that would be a lie. In fact, I really couldn't remember anything, that is except all the stupid things I did back then.

For instance, once my husband and I were faced with a life changing decision-should we pay our electric bill or go to Cedar Point, an amusement park. I think the answer is obvious, we went to Cedar Point. Not only did we use every cent we had to experience some death defying roller coasters, but we also got the biggest bang for our buck! We arrived at the park twenty minutes before the "twilight hour" rates began, but we were so excited we decided to forgo waiting the few minutes and go right in at full price! Good choices, I know. I lived for a week without electricity after that little trip. My rationalization at the time was that it was summer. Who needed lights anyway? Or fifty dollars worth of meat in the freezer? Not us! We just needed the thrill of the wind in our hair.

Money wasn't something I grasped during my years without kids, and neither did anyone else that I knew. One time my husband sold his truck so he could buy a mountain bike. Never mind the fact that he sometimes worked an hour from our house. He needed that bike, after all he was going to be a professional mountain biker, right? Not! Another time my girlfriend was scrounging for change to pay her bills. We literally were scouring the streets and our apartments for spare change so that she could survive another week. Once we collected all we could, we took our pot of coins to one of those electric counters you see at the grocery store. Eighty-five dollars! That's what it came out to be. Did she take that money and put it toward her living expenses? Nope. Instead we thought it would be much more fun to blow it at a local pub. Boy, was that a fun night.

Now I look at money in a different light. That's what happens when you are responsible for three other human lives. Yes, life is different after kids. It's like you enter another realm after becoming a parent. Suddenly you find yourself in a whole new world you never knew existed. You go from living in a world of parties and sleeping in late, to playdates and book reports. If I said the word Zhu Zhu Pet* to someone without kids they would look at me look at me like I was an escaped mental patient. But if I said those two works to a parent I guarentee that they would break out into the story of how they bought the last two Zhu Zhu pets at Target, after standing in line for three hours, in the middle of the night, in the cold, on a Wednesday.

Besides making bad choices I don't remember my life without kids. It's like a black hole. I have two explanations for this. First, it could be that our children have brought us so much joy and love that our lives that once exhisted are meaningless and empty without them in it. Or second, God designed us to forget...so that we wouldn't eat our young.



Zhu Zhu Pet- a robotic hamster that runs around in a plastic "funhouse", the hottest toy of the Christmas season. Comparable to the Cabbage Patch Kid craze, for you thirty-somethings.