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"March 20, 2010 4:20 A.M. JD enters my bedroom asking for &amp;quot;juicy&amp;quot; because he is &amp;quot;very thirty [thirsty].&amp;quot; I get him a watered-down cup of apple juice. He drinks it and then begs to come in &amp;quot;Mommybed.&amp;quot; OK. Then he begs to watch &amp;quot;T [TV]&amp;quot; NO. We both go back to sleep. I like smelling his hair. It&amp;#x27;s soft and powdery. He&amp;#x27;s on his belly with his puffy diaper butt popped in the air. 6:10 A.M. &amp;quot;Wake up, Mommy!&amp;quot; JD says, lifting the covers from my face. It&amp;#x27;s 6:10 on a Saturday. Wow. So tired. Worked/commuted all week, which = a 12-hour day. &amp;quot;I want cereal, peese [please],&amp;quot; he says and shimmies off the bed. He&amp;#x27;s so cute, even at dawn. I make him stand on the stool and attempt potty. Doesn&amp;#x27;t happen. Change him into a pair of real underpants. He asks for a diaper. 6:30 A.M. JD eats cereal and yogurt and strawberries and watches cartoons. I sip coffee and repeatedly ask him if he has to go pee-pee. He says no. I make him try. Nothing. 7:00 A.M. Accident. Bath. Pull-up. Dressed. Play cars. We spend the morning playing with his Matchbox cars, watching cartoons and building epic block towers he knocks down with his &amp;quot;trucky.&amp;quot; I point to random things and ask him what color they are, and he knows every one. Genius. I eventually take a five-minute shower, and when I emerge JD tells me he &amp;quot;lost keys.&amp;quot; But I know he just put my keys in the umbrella can. He did. I get dressed. My mom is coming over so I can RUN to get a pedicure (What, it&amp;#x27;s open-toe-shoe season!) I feel guilty doing this. I worked all week AWAY from him. 9:00 A.M. First one to arrive at nail salon--that&amp;#x27;s right, I&amp;#x27;m slick! Select an almost black color for my toes and sink into a chair, where I start going through e-mails on my BlackBerry. No time to dry but turn on the AC in the car and switch the dial to ground. Perfect. 10:00 A.M. Take JD for haircut. The whole way I tell him he&amp;#x27;s going to the place where his uncles get their hair cut, and he is excited; he even says he&amp;#x27;s going to show Marty his &amp;quot;red fire trucky.&amp;quot; Then we get there, and it takes two professionals to cut his mop because &amp;quot;they scare me, Mommy.&amp;quot; 11:00 A.M. Go to Target, Old Navy, Baby Gap and Gymboree and buy JD over $200 worth of new clothes because nothing fits him. He yells &amp;quot;boobies&amp;quot; when we stroll past the lingerie department in Target. I turn red. Noon. Treat JD to lunch at Wendy&amp;#x27;s because I never let him eat crap. He loves his chicken nuggets and french fries and milk. I have a salad. It&amp;#x27;s OK. 1:00 P.M. Meet mom friends and JD&amp;#x27;s buddies at park. Stay there till 4 P.M. because it&amp;#x27;s gorgeous out. I love chasing JD around on the blacktop and filling buckets with sand together. I sit at a nearby picnic table with my mom friends and watch my little boy play with his friends. He&amp;#x27;s so big and beautiful. 4:15 P.M. Get home, take off JD&amp;#x27;s sneakers, sand from the sandbox sprays everywhere. JD says &amp;quot;coo-wool!&amp;quot; I peel off the rest of his clothes that are grass-stained and dirty and take him to the potty. He asks for a diaper (he&amp;#x27;s not ready to potty train--it&amp;#x27;s fine). We vacuum the sand (JD has a little yellow one that he pushes around). 4:30 P.M. Give JD a snack and turn on cartoons. Open a package of chicken breasts and throw them in a bowl of lime-cilantro dressing. Collapse on couch. 5:00 P.M. Grill chicken, make black beans and green salad. Eat. Pick up many black beans from the floor. Thanks, JD. Still sunny out, so I take JD into the courtyard and we play soccer, eat strawberries and look for planes that are going to California (his first plane ride was to there, so he associates planes with California). 6:30 P.M. Give JD a bath and let him take 12 Matchbox cars in the tub with him because he tells me he wants to play &amp;quot;car wash.&amp;quot; Fine. Sit on floor near tub and call Nic. We catch up. Wash up JD and scrub his hair. Get him dressed in his &amp;quot;pretty pants&amp;quot; [pajamas]. He smells like cucumbers and sweet melon. Mmmm. 7:30 P.M. Nighttime snack for JD. He wants Cheerios. Easy. We watch Dora and he talks Spanish throughout--amazing. I read him three books: Where The Wild Things Are, Hugo and The Thingamabob. He asks for some &amp;quot;milky.&amp;quot; I give him a sip and tuck him in. 8:00 P.M. The condo is dark and quiet. I think about opening some bills. No. Doing some freelance work. No. Folding the laundry. No. I take a shower and wash the park smell off me and climb into my bed before 9 P.M. (Exciting! But, I&amp;#x27;m tired, been up since 6 A.M. and really didn&amp;#x27;t feel like giving sitter $12/hr. so I could be an adult and drink a beer or something). I attempt to rent New Moon On Demand, but Cablevision won&amp;#x27;t let me. Crap, did I not pay the bill, again? Crap. I check. I did pay it. I call Cablevision and I&amp;#x27;m on hold for seven minutes before I hang up. C&amp;#x27;mon, New Moon. I try to rent it again. I watch The Nanny Diaries on Lifetime instead. Game over. Why did I recap my Saturday for you? Last Thursday I posted a blog that got a lot of interesting comments. I was called bitter, and my loyal readers were told to go find their own &amp;quot;happy endings&amp;quot; and stop thinking about their ex/absent parent. I&amp;#x27;m not bitter, and neither are my readers. We&amp;#x27;re single parents who are raising children ALONE. I&amp;#x27;m not complaining about my Saturday--it was lovely. I love spending time with JD and especially after such a hellish workweek in which I was away from him every day from 8 A.M. until after 7 P.M. The reality of the situation is that I and many of my single-mom readers are doing it all alone, raising kids, working and running a household, and that doesn&amp;#x27;t leave time for much else. And for me, it&amp;#x27;s OK--I have my son, and I honor him and my commitment to be his mother. A lot of our exes found these so-called &amp;quot;happy endings&amp;quot; because instead of taking their kids to get a haircut and playing in a park for three hours straight and cooking a balanced dinner, they were off dating, having sex, drinking beer, partying, buying engagement rings. Bitter and discussing FACTS? Two different things. No one ever said a man doesn&amp;#x27;t have the right to choose--obviously he does! That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean I&amp;#x27;m not going to write about my feelings and life as a single parent. I&amp;#x27;m also not looking for a &amp;quot;happy ending.&amp;quot; I&amp;#x27;m on a happy journey with my son. Discuss. Be kind to each other. And tune in tomorrow. I scored an AMAZING Q/A! Woo! P.S. Sunday played out the same as Saturday, but throw in a run to the grocery store (so I could plan out five dinners for this week), green market trip and cavatelli and broccoli for dinner. I had a lovely weekend. I&amp;#x27;m a mommy and happy to be one. *** More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering for or logging in to Glamour.com! Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;#x27;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage. Follow us on Twitter."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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