Thursday, January 28, 2010

Unemployment sucks.

So my super-techie husband, Sunshine, who started to work while he was in his early teens has now been unemployed for 4 months. I started a second job while at it and had to drop it because I was on-call so much that when my cell phone rang, my Mini-me (my 4 year old son) would immediately come and give me a kiss goodbye… before I even answered it. I was so tired that something had to give and I refuse to give the kids away (for now at least) so the second job it was.


Sunshine has been trying to be a trooper about this. At first I could tell that he had no idea what to do with himself. What to do when you have worked for 25 years and all of a sudden you don’t have a job? I whipped out the Honey-do list and he completed it in a week. In order to make him feel like he contributes to the family, I asked him to take on my chores… He now cooks, cleans, does the laundry and all the “fun” stuff. Although it’s nice to come home to a hot meal and bathed children every day (some of my girlfriends SWEAR I have it made), I still feel cheated. Don’t get me wrong, I was never the type to fight over scrubbing around the toilet in a house full of men, but there seems to be a little piece that it’s missing for me.

Sunshine is now planning to leave town indefinitely to find work in an area more technical than the Blue Ridge Mountains. He is originally from Chicago so he is returning there. In preparation for his trip we have now installed video-chatting software in our laptops. The kids will need to see their dad and I’ll need to be able to see in his eyes that he misses me.

I have no idea how I am going to take care of all this. To be honest, I am scared to death. I try to tell myself that there are millions of single moms out there who do this every day, but it still makes me nervous.

Right now, I am patting myself on the back for all the years of making sure that our kids are being raised as independent as they can be. After all, if all else fails, Skywalker (our 9-year old) can make great peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Mini-me will eat ANYTHING. Too bad I hate peanut butter.

2 comments:

Theta Mom said...

This is a hard time for many...sorry to hear about the unemployment situation. Hopefully, the economy will improve and things will get somehwat "back to normal" in the upcoming months.

And thanks so much for stopping by Theta Mom! Look forward to blogging with you!

Loving Wife, Working Mom said...

Thanks for the words of encouragement! All I want right now is one night of going to sleep without a tight knot in my stomach... especially after paying just some of the bills.