The Real Life Of A Single Mom

I’m becoming sentimental.

While planning my daughter’s sweet sixteen birthday party, to be held in a few months, my mind has been drifting. I keep thinking about time’s swift passage. And I have been trying to come to terms with my baby turning sixteen. I am ready to celebrate this milestone in my daughter’s development, but I wish I had magical powers to turn back the hands of time.

Recently, as I remembered my daughter as a bubbly spirited little girl, a funny memory showed up.

She Was Only Five

Cute, funny, precocious, and a little sassy best described my beautiful little girl at age five. She was very helpful, too.

My daughter was enrolled in a prestigious private school for girls. As an only parent, my budget was tight, especially because I was adjusting to paying a huge tuition bill along with payments for my child’s gymnastics program.

We had a good, time-management routine. Aside from working as a school administrator and taking care of my daughter in every other way, every minute of every day was accounted for.

For example, after arriving home from church each Sunday, I washed our laundry for the week. I always washed my daughter’s school uniforms and all of the black pants that I would wear throughout the week together in one large load. There were other huge loads to clean, too.

Then This Happened

On a particular Sunday afternoon, I only got as far as piling our dirty laundry onto the laundry room floor because I was exhausted. I couldn’t do another thing. So, I took a short nap on our sofa intending to complete my tasks when I was a little more refreshed.

While I was asleep, I heard my little girl as she approached me. As my groggy eyes opened, I saw my bouncy daughter dance around before me with a big smile on her face. Her pigtails also bounced as she said with innocent pride in her squeaky little voice that was uniquely hers,

“Mommy! I did the laundry for you!!”

At the same time, the strong odor of something that didn’t smell right hit me. I quickly came to my senses after recognizing the smell, and screamed

“oh no!”

as I sprang up and ran down to the laundry room.

My helpful sweet little girl had carried her step stool down to the basement, loaded all the black pants that I owned into the washer except the ones I had on and one other pair that remained in my closet. My little helper also loaded the washer with all of her uniforms except for a few that hung in her closet. She set the washer to rinse and nearly added an entire bottle of bleach to the clothes that we wore every weekday. My biggest fear was realized when I opened the lid of the washer and saw all her school uniforms and all my black pants ruined by the bleach.

My response to my beautiful daughter was

“thank you for being so helpful”

as I kissed her. I assured my daughter that we would always do the laundry together.

I couldn’t afford to buy replacement pants for myself nor could I afford new uniforms for my daughter. So, for the rest of the school year, I wore my two pairs of black pants. I’d wash a pair every night to make sure they were clean. And I did the same with the two uniforms my daughter had left.

No one at my school knew that I, the principal, only owned two pairs of pants that I rotated for the rest of the school year. I think the beautiful tops and accessories that I wore made the difference. And I must say, I looked very nice and professional every day. No one at my daughter’s school knew that she only had two uniforms for the rest of her kindergarten year neither.

But I believe that people may have guessed something was going on with our slightly faded clothes by the end of the school year.

There is a happier ending to this story. My soon-to-be 16-year-old daughter now takes care of her own laundry.

Do you remember funny stories about your children when they were younger? Be sure to think about these incidents with a smile on your face.

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Thank you.

This story was originally self-published in Doctor Funny on Medium.com.