Potomac Local Parent of the Month: Michelle

Potomac Parent is a monthly column that looks at life through the eyes of real parents. This month, we interview Michelle.

1. What time you do wake up?

On a school day, 5:30 a.m.

2. What are your children’s names and ages?

Bella 7, Gabe 14

3. What’s the most difficult part about your morning routine?

Getting the kids showered and dressed. It has to be a multiple request process. “Get your clothes. Get in the shower. Get dressed. Eat breakfast.” The kids hate getting up out of bed. They hate going back to school. They procrastinate, play on their tablets or phones until I bark at them.

4. What is your morning beauty or grooming routine?

My situation doesn’t allow any time. Or I don’t give myself time. I really don’t know how I can fit that in. Sometimes I shower before I take the kids to school, sometimes after. My schedule is scattered because I’m scattered.

5. Are you a coffee or tea person?

Tea, but I don’t have it regularly in the morning because I really don’t have time. My mornings are about getting out the door on time. I have to bring the kids to two different schools, two different towns. No, no time for tea.

6. What do you do once the kids are in school?

I often have errands to run. Mondays and Tuesdays I drive my brother around because he doesn’t drive. Usually I bring him to the bank or grocery shopping. We go on a Costco run or to the post office. When I’m on a roll, I go to the gym. If I’m working, I go to work.

7. What kind of work do you do outside the home?

I do private tutoring for ESL students. I can set the schedule as I need to.

8. What is the biggest challenge of trying to get work done – any work – with your schedule and responsibilities?

The biggest challenge is It’s really difficult. I’m transitioning. And being divorced and a one parent home, if the kids have to come home from school, there’s always something hindering my ability to work full-time.

9. What do you wear during the work week?

I wear black dress pants and a colorful blouse. I am more casual than dressed up because I don’t have an executive job where I have to dress up.

10. What’s the craziest thing that happened to you so far this week?

I had an anxiety attack. I went to bed and I just laid there in the dark with my eyes open. I couldn’t breathe. It doesn’t help that I have been sick. I have all the stress of my financial burdens, my kids’ problems. My son doesn’t feel like people like him. He doesn’t think he has any friends. Then I’m trying to date and I really don’t need that stress. Dating is scary. I don’t even know if I want to do it. Why am I bothering with that when I have so many things on my plate already? Both my kids are in this want, want, want stage. I need to be there for them. Why add the stress of dating? Life is stressful enough, even for the person who is the most organized. And I’m not organized

11. Do you have pets?

I had a hamster, but it died. We had a fish named Elsa, but the furnace broke and the fish froze. Elsa was frozen. No lie. I replaced the fish while my daughter was in school, but I couldn’t get the exact color. When she came home from school she asked me, “Mommy, why is Elsa a different color?” I couldn’t tell her that her fish had died. I told her that in the winter, fish turn different colors.

12. How do you get through the hard times?

Music. Music really gets me pepped up, emotionally straightened out. We all get down in life, and you have to find outlets, things that make you feel better, and for me, it’s music. I could be in the worst of moods and put on peppy, happy music and it forces me to get out that place – the stress, sadness, whatever emotion I’m feeling. And making someone else’s life better makes me feel better, too. Helping others who have it even worse off than you…it puts your life into perspective. You can’t stay down in the dumps when you see how other people might have it worse than you. You have to say, I have solutions and resources, but other people don’t.

13. What’s your favorite color?

Baby blue

14. What kind of car do you drive?

Honda Pilot, burgundy

15. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?

I’d be a peacock. No, not a peacock. I’d be a horse. A horse is a strong animal and it’s beautiful. A horse is very useful, and I want to be useful. And it goes places, you know? That’s what I want.