Daycare for my 3-year-old son has been the single most difficult challenge since I started navigating the murky waters of Single Motherhood more than a year ago.

I spent nearly 12 months rendering almost an entire paycheck on a Nanny. I wanted Nolan to have dedicated, attentive care, because I couldn’t give it to him. I wanted him to go to the zoo, the aquarium with her, to perhaps be so distracted with fun things that he wouldn’t notice quite as much that Daddy didn’t live with us anymore, that Mommy spent hours with a furrowed brow at her desk, juggling bills and attempting to paste together mangled ends.

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Nataly drew my attention to an intriguing article last night, about women who have made the decision to have children solo.

It seems like it’s a bit of a trend: 30-something, successful and independent women who have everything: a home, a stable career, a joie de vivre and a need to share it. They have everything, that is, except a man and a child. And they’re increasingly deciding that they don’t need the man to have the child.

I read the article with great interest: I have several friends in their early thirties who are navigating this perplexing road now. They are still young but experienced in dating, jaded enough to know that their chances of finding Mr. Right are diminishing daily. Their bodies are still young enough to conceive fairly easily, but there’s not that much time. It’s a critical, life-altering decision. Should they make the decision to bear and raise a child alone? It’s a question with a very personal answer. But — and this may get me in trouble — if I were asked my opinion, as a woman raising a child solo, I would say: don’t do it.

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I had one of my killer day-trips to LA yesterday. The trips last from 6 AM (an early flight) till sometime around midnight, when normally, I slip my key into my front door and stagger, saggy kneed and bleary like a drunken old man, into my bed.

Most normal business women would stay the night in LA, of course, it’s a two hour flight from here and it’s semi absurd to pack in four meetings and traffic in one day. But for me, it’s necessary. I need to get home for my son. Bonus: it saves my company hotel fees! And, it provides Grandparents with a little extra Nolan time.

It normally kills me dead, trashes my body and messes with my sleep patterns. But last night, though I arrived home from the airport at around 1:00, I slept like a baby and felt fine all day today. And I think it’s because, after nearly two dozen trips this year, I am starting to get organized on the business trip front. It’s about time, I know.

Here are my top 5 trips for a smooth, frazzle-free business trip.

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This past weekend, I lined up a play date for Nolan with an adorably chubby-cheeked three-year-old from his daycare. I was actually really looking forward to it: I knew Marco’s Mom was an advertising sales executive too, and I thought we’d have lots in common. In my neighborhood, full-time working Moms are rare, and it was sweet relief to chat about the impossibility of steady work/life balance with a woman who understood.

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My just-turned-three-year old son sits tear-streaked on the floor of his bedroom, protruding white tummy almost comical against his tiny white gonch, if it weren’t for the true devastation of his angst.

“Mommy, those are not cool,”he wails, burying his head against the atrocity of his dark-rinse jeans,”Anthony says those are not cool.”

I look at his jeans, look at him, exasperated.  How does a three year old dictate what is cool?  Why have I been negotiating with him, feebly, for the last hour?

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My best friend was in town last weekend, on an unexpected personal trip to the West Coast.

I put Nolan to bed a little early and we sat on teak patio chairs in the fading light of summer, delivery pizza cooling on the counter inside.  We sat in silence, we sat in gratitude, we cried quietly in snippets and high-fived one another at particularly bizarre and profound utterances.  I sat back in my chair and remembered something I often forget in the chaos of my life as a single Mama: friends are precious commodities, at any stage, at any age.

Talk turned to men, as it often does.  She is 34, single, no children.  I’m a year behind her, single, with one baby who has perplexingly sprouted into a little boy.  We’ve been friends for 15 years, she and I: we met when she was a bartender and I was a cocktail waitress at a rugby-player infused Irish pub.  We spent most of our early twenties swilling summer cocktails and flirting with cute snowboarders; we spent the latter part of that decade convincing ourselves that we could change the bad boys.  If they had heart, we argued, the rest could be fixed.  Heart, humor, that’s the stuff that matters.

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The last time I had a blood test, I was in my first trimester of pregnancy, pale and jittery.  I remember sitting on the squeaky stool at the lab, in a sterile white room that smelled of cotton batting and hospital vinegar. I stared at the curiously ugly chart of the heart on the wall and pretended not to notice as the clinician yanked a giant blue elastic around my piteously fatskinny upper arm, making me feel instantly light headed.  I tried to warn her of my affliction before the needle actually hit my skin (even writing about it makes me nauseous) but I opened my mouth too late and then, dear god: Code Horror! A gigantic skeleton-colored pregnant lady has passed out on the floor of the clinic.  Because of a little needle.

Tomorrow, a nice lady is coming to my house to give me a needle.  And I’m hoping I don’t pass out, but if I do, I’m sure she’ll just nudge me and prod me again: this is a mandatory needle, because I’m getting life insurance.

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There’s a suite for rent on a hilly, forested street in a nearby neighborhood. It’s within budget, all utilities included. Slightly belligerent but exquisitely charismatic rescue dogs are not only tolerated, but encouraged. The landlords are dog people, this is good, I can feel it.

I make an appointment for a viewing at 4:30 the next day.

“I have a few people coming,”the landlord warns me.

“That’s OK,” I reply,”I just think this might be perfect, I’d really love to see it.

I walk up the steps to a looming house, all grey-and-glass and jutting West Coast architecture. Nolan grips my finger, tiny and spry in his green monkey t-shirt, and I watch the landlord regard us from the front step, an “O” forming on his mouth.

“I’m not looking for me,”I explain quickly,”And not for my son. It would just be a man living here — 31 years old, a tradesman, an avid mountain biker, pretty quiet. And my dog — well, his dog now. An awesome rescue dog, he’ll capture your heart.”

He doesn’t say anything and I draw a breath,”I’m looking on behalf of my ex,”I say,”For my son’s father.

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