Around the bend

People, stupid sibling rivalry in concert with seemingly unprecedented levels of talking and siren-sound making is driving me batty this morning. "He's touching my leg, mom," "I want that broken twig, it's MINE," "I can't put these colored pencils in the box"- cue dramatically tumbling to a heap on the ground...I tried to disassociate by making muffins- those pumpkin-plum muffins are the bomb!- and coffee. It's so interesting how much more intense and difficult things seem when you're solo-parenting. Tom left at some ungodly hour this morning and will be gone all honking week. Anyway, I have such a huge amount of respect for single parents- that's a hard effing job! Thank goodness for schools, extended families, friends and so forth.