Single Mom in Manhattan



This little ray of sunshine makes it all worth it.


Don't worry, she was totally fine. She just didn't want me to take a picture of her. Seriously, that's why she's crying. Such a diva. Not a fan of my own appearance in the pic, but it's too funny not to post.

Anyway, the point of this post is to share how I make our day to day lives work. I work full time, and don't have much in the way of "free" help - Audrey's father has her every other Sunday afternoon, and my brother is the only family member nearby. My brother actually lives with me. He moved in last January to go to school in the city. Initially, we exchanged babysitting for rent, but his school and work schedules allow for minimal babysitting, and Audrey is in full-time preschool now anyway.

Fortunately, I have pretty good work hours. I have an 8 hour day, with an hour built in for lunch, so I actually only have a 35 hour work week. With a half hour commute each way, Audrey's preschool provides just enough coverage. My brother still picks Audrey up and watches her for an hour or two one day a week, so I can stay a little late at work and catch up on stuff or run errands. Occasionally I do something with friends and he watches her for a couple hours, but that's very rare. The rest of my family lives in Pennsylvania, or farther, so while my mom and sister have come out for emergencies in the past, they aren't around for day to day needs.

When her preschool closes and I'm not off work, I'm fortunate enough to have a back up daycare at work. It's part of the Bright Horizons schools, and available for use for up to 20 days per calendar year (although one year I had to use it much more than that and it wasn't a problem) for $20 a day. This has saved me many, many times. In fact, Audrey's preschool closes for two weeks next month for annual maintenance, etc., and she will be at the daycare for most of that.

As for the little things - things you wouldn't think are a big deal - laundry, grocery shopping? Yea, those are harder than you'd think when you're trying to do them on your own, with a small child in tow, in Manhattan. We don't have a laundry room in my building, the closest one is a couple blocks away. For a long time, I just sucked it up and did my laundry with Audrey in tow - bringing her to the park or the diner while the clothes were in the washer, coming back to switch them over, then same thing while they were in the dryer. It was tedious. I finally realized dropping it off and having them do it for me didn't cost much more, if anything at all, and it saved a small piece of my sanity.

Another seemingly simple task, grocery shopping, is again, not so simple. Carting bags of groceries home and up three flights of stairs in one hand while trying to hold a three year old's hand with the other? Not fun. I don't do all my shopping at once, or even at the same store. I go to Trader Joes for a bunch of stuff, Fairway for things Trader Joes doesn't carry. Both deliver for free or cheap, so I've used that service when I have a lot in my cart. There's also the Fruit Exchange at Chelsea Market, which has every kind of produce imaginable. There's also the ultimate lazy way to grocery shop, online. I use Peapod usually, but also recently discovered Amazon's Prime Pantry. The only downside with those is the soonest you can get your order is the next day, often at least two days later.

As I mentioned, Audrey is with her father for a few hours every other Sunday. I try to use that time for every thing else - catching up on tv shows I can't watch around Audrey (those True Blood sex scenes? Not 3 year old appropriate), miscellaneous errands such as returning stuff, doing stuff with friends - brunch, shows, etc., or schoolwork.

Oh right, did I mention I take online classes? Had to fill all that free time somehow right? The biggest reasoning behind this, which I think I mentioned in one of my first posts, is to defer those student loans. But I still try to do well in the classes, in case I decide to transfer the credits over to a graduate program at some point.

So in some ways, the city presents challenges that aren't found in other areas - the inconvenience of carting laundry/groceries multiple blocks without a car - but it also presents solutions not offered elsewhere. This fortunately gives me most of my weekends to enjoy with my kid. I do my own cleaning (although I'm certainly not opposed to hiring someone, it's not in my budget right now), so most of that gets done on weekends, but I try to spend as much of it as possible actually enjoying ourselves.  

Finances are another component of how I make it work as a single mom in the city, but I think I've rambled enough for one post.