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For six years, I was a single parent. When my daughter was 11 months old, my first husband and I separated and I didn't remarry until she was 7 years old. Single parenting had its challenges and I knew that someday I wanted to remarry, but I became accustomed to our life and I think I managed pretty well. Luckily, I met a wonderful man who adopted my daughter and we've been happily married for three years. This past week, he went out of town for a conference and parenting alone was so much harder than I remembered it to be!

Maybe it is was more difficult because now instead of one daughter, I have a daughter and two sons! One son is only 2 1/2 weeks old. For several days prior to my husband leaving, I thought "How am I going to do this?" Then, the day came and he was gone. The first day and night were okay. Luckily, my little guy is still a good sleeper. Then, the next day my little one decided to cry for an hour at a time during the morning, afternoon, and at night. It was hard, but we made it through the day. The following day, he cried again. By then, I was frazzled. When my husband called that evening, I was anything but nice. I didn't want to hear about the nice dinners he was having or the details from the conference. I was thinking, "How could you be having fun, when I am here with a screaming baby?" He got the hint because his next phone call was much sweeter and when he got home he was extra willing to help!

When my husband finally arrived home, we had made it through the four days he was gone. The house was in decent shape and all the children were happy. Of course our little guy hasn't had any crying fits since Daddy has been home. Maybe he missed his Daddy as much as I missed him. The vacation from Daddy reminded me how hard single parenting can be. It can be done, but I am so thankful to have a partner to parent with and my kids are thankful for their Daddy too!