"Single-Momming" It

Well.......the Lord keeps showing me more ways to be compassionate.

My husband is having to travel pretty much Mon-Fri. right now, which leaves me alone with four kiddos. One of those being a teenage boy who is now bigger than me and the second one 12-1/2....need I say more? And they are all home every day because it is still summer. I am counting down the days until school starts at this point.....12 days!!! And, this is with me teaching fitness classes 3 mornings a week (got rid of one a couple of weeks ago), and working from home for my other job. Luckily, I can do that job whenever I want, or have time.

And another interesting phenomenon is that I'm realizing we have been in some sort of honeymoon phase with our kids. They were past the hard infant/toddler phase and in the phase of just being happy playing outside with friends, swimming, fishing, etc. But, not anymore....in the past two weeks I have found my 14 yr. old diving off a cliff into our neighborhood pond (strictly no swimming allowed, of course) with his friends and VIDEOTAPING it and putting themselves on YOUTUBE! And then, a week later doing front flips off the drain-thingy into the other pond...apparently, I wasn't clear enough the first time... Then, I walk down the street the other night and find him on top of my neighbor's house. The ROOF!!! When I asked what they were doing up there, the response I got was, "just hanging out...."

So, now I know......the teenage years are going to be interesting... If I can just keep them breathing. I now know that I have to give them instructions like: "no getting on the roof, no taping things for Youtube, no diving into ponds, etc." Wow.

And all of this with no husband home. So, my compassion is growing by leaps and bounds for single moms. There is something about the power of a dad's authority that scares kids way more than their mom who they tower over!

However, one answer I have found to solve alot of these problems is: TAKE THE CELL PHONE AWAY. This is an incredible power that every mom (or dad) should be aware of. It is like their lifeblood or something. So, I have made a big powerplay in the last couple of days and taken my 14 yr. old's phone away because he was 7 min. late on curfew....I told him a week, but so far we are at about 36 hours and I'm realizing it is sort of a punishment on myself, too. I can't get hold of him every second when he doesn't have it. I will at least make it till tomorrow though.

So, if you know a single mom out there....pray for her. It is an extremely challenging job.