Last week Skylar went out to get a pack of cigarettes and never come back so I was a hot single mom for five days.

He had a conference in Orlando, the Paris of America. It was a dermatology conference where a bunch of vampires from all over the country get together and show off how none of them can move their faces or identify sunlight.

I don't like it when Skylar goes out of town. I don't know if it's not clear by my constantly writing about myself on this website for nearly two decades, but I really love attention. And when Skylar is not in the house absolutely worshiping me every day, which is in his contract, I don't get nearly enough attention.

He had told me about this conference months ago and he was dreading it because something snapped in this man's brain when he became a parent and now he can't take ten steps away from me or the baby without breaking down crying. I would be flattered by this if I wasn't so concerned.

He asked me to come to Orlando with him and bring the baby and I thought about doing just that for approximately two seconds before I realized I couldn't imagine a worse fate than flying six hours with a newborn so I could go sit in a hotel room with the same newborn for five days.

And I know. I could have just taken him to Disneyworld every day while Skylar was in literally twelve-hour meetings. But I'm just going to guess that my five-month-old baby who takes a nap every twenty minutes and is scared of my dad because he wears glasses and has a mustache is not ready to go see a grown man dressed as a duck, or whatever.

The main problem with Skylar leaving town is every time this happens the fairy who does our dishes and generally picks up after me mysteriously stops working. And don't even get me started on the laundry. I have lived in this house for ten years and I still don't know where we keep the washing machine.

But it's even worse now that we have a baby because the baby came with a whole bunch of new chores and I don't know what all of them are.

And listen. I'm not an absentee parent. I'm a helicopter mom who now has chronic back pain because I've refused to put down this baby for nearly six straight months. When the Angel Gabriel visited us and handed West into our arms, Skylar and I just sort of naturally and without overt coordination divvied up the daily tasks and never looked back.

I do most of the baths, all of the doctor appointments, nail clippings (TRAUMATIC), and all of the cooking. But it turns out Skylar does things, too, and I didn't know what those things were until he ABANDONED me without even leaving a list.

My first crisis happened when our baby formula maker ran out of water and formula at the same time.

And yes. Our baby is exclusively formula fed. Please send me angry emails about this. I can't be talked out of it. My boobs are for showing at the club only.

I need to look you in the eye when I tell you something I genuinely can't believe is true: I have fed this baby an ocean's worth of BAD PARENTING formula for half a year and I have not once ever mixed the formula myself. I have no idea how to do it. Is it just powder and water? Are there other ingredients? Should I add vanilla as a special treat? I don't know.

I didn't even know where we kept the formula. I've never once bought formula. Where do you even buy it? Can you buy it? Or do you just harvest it from a plant I didn't know we had? I don't know where one procures formula. Sizzler? I think you maybe get it at Sizzler.

It has never once even crossed my mind that this was something we needed to be doing. Why? Because the same fairy who goes on dishes strike every time Skylar goes out of town has also, since day one, ensured that we have an unlimited supply of formula in the house somewhere and that the formula machine that magically mixes the bottles for me with the press of one button is always full.

So yeah. I had a perfect storm moment on the second day Skylar was gone where the machine was out of powder and water and it flashed an error message that it needed to be cleaned and literally every single one of our bottles was dirty and in the kitchen sink.

I had a crying baby on my hip when I realized the situation I was in. I was basically a Family Circus cartoon, but with fewer Jesus undertones and more homosexuality.

Duncan was standing at my feet, looking up at me with deep concern in his eyes, as if to say, "I wish I could help but I'm only nine inches tall." Louie was in the other room continuing, as he now has for six months, to refuse to notice we have brought a human baby into our home.

Long story short, I decided it was a really good time to start introducing my baby to solid foods. We ordered spicy Indian takeout and I plopped him onto our white couch and gave him his own spoon.

I'm kidding. We ate with our hands because the dishes were all dirty.

Whatever happens when a mom in crisis gets the strength to lift a baby off a car basically happened to me in that moment. Except, instead of lifting a baby off a car it was me finding white powder in a cupboard and hoping Skylar hadn't started a vibrant cocaine business without my knowledge as I dumped it into a hole in the machine I hoped was for formula.

Magically, I handed West a clean bottle of perfectly warm NEGLECTFUL PARENT FAKE MILK only two minutes later. He glared at me as he ate and I vowed to him in that moment I would never allow him to have to wait for anything he wants ever again or experience even the smallest amount of adversity as long as he lived in my home.

I should write a parenting book.

Skylar Facetimed us from his hotel room later that night. West and I were lying on my bed, having just finished our evening book and song time. (Five Little Pumpkins is all the rage right now. Give that song a Grammy.)

"Is daddy taking care of you," Skylar asked. He doesn't talk to me on these calls. I am but an accessory.

"Did you know the formula machine can run out of powder and water?" I interrupted.

Skylar made that face through his phone like he didn't know whether to pity or be disappointed in me. "Oh?" he said. "Now how could that possibly happen?"

"I don't know," I told him. "But you better hurry and come home. We never seem to have bad luck like this when you're around."

~It Just Gets Stranger