My husband doesn’t travel, but he works nights and I work days, so we tag team. We also homeschool (split the work between each of us, half gets done during the day, half in the evening). We have three kids, 8, 2 (nearly 3) and 8 months. For all intents and purposes, we are both single parenting for the bulk of the time.
Our soon-to-be 3 year old is like your two year old. She is the biggest challenge. A smart kid (very smart!) and her independance is beyond measure. Has no fear of consequences, even though she understands them fully.
She shrieks like she’s being murdered whenever she doesn’t get her own way (mostly when her older sister is trying to get her to cooperate or taking something away from her.) Admittedly, I rely on my oldest to help me when the nearly-3-yr old is into something and I can’t get there fast enough, or if I’m nursing. She’s afraid of me, believe me, but that doesn’t stop her from her tricks. It just makes her shake in her boots when she’s busted.
It doesn’t help that my littlest, my 8 mo old DS, CLINGS TO ME LIKE GLUE. I can’t get anything done without him being attached to me. That really makes housework and basic necessity cleaning nearly out of the question. DH is not the most motivated person so all this stuff is left to me.
What’s my answer? I don’t have one. I pray and pray and pray. We’ve been doing this for almost 3 years. I haven’t given up hope that God will make a change for the better for us (better paying daylight job for DH so that I can quit and look after the kids full time). However, our situation has been a blessing, in that it has enabled us to both homeschool and keep our littlest ones at home instead of daycare, while we both work. We couldn’t do that if we both worked daylight (we both used to, before our oldest started kindergarten).
Has your DH considered looking for a job with less (or no) travel? I work with a lot of software and hardware guys, and their research only requires about 20% travel, if that. In other words, there are other positions out there for a software guy that don’t require that much travel. They may not be as lucrative, but they are there. Do you have family and friends to pitch in? I have a friend who has an 11 yr old who goes out and helps some of the moms in their church and neighborhood now and then. It’s a little like having a babysitter. She helps clean a little, but more importantly, keeps the littler kids happily entertained while Mom puts her feet up and rests for a short while, or even in the case of new moms, gets a shower. Do you have a MOMS group at your parish? That’s another source of support.
Sorry, I don’t have much in the way of useful ideas, but I can offer solidarity if nothing else. Sometimes I just tell myself that when I’m an old woman and my kids are grown, I’ll look back and say it was all worth it. My grandmother, who was born in 1895, had to go back to work after she was widowed in 1938. She had 6 kids, 2 were out of the house, but the other 4 were boys, and the youngest was only 4. To do that back then was rough, and I use her as my role model. It helps me when I’m down
