1.  Numero Uno: My son and I are both alive.  I feel especially grateful because three years ago we almost didn't make it.  At 28 weeks pregnancy, I came down with severe eclampsia out of nowhere. At 28 weeks, my blood pressure skyrocketed to 190/100, all my organs started shutting down, the hospital staff kept asking me for my "Advanced Directive", doctors weren't very hopeful to my mother and sister sitting outside my door (I was in the windowless surgical ward for 2 days) as I lay near death and coma, heavily sedated on magnesium sulfate, and then rushed to surgery for C-section to deliver a 2 lb. baby., who spent 3 months in the hospital thereafter. Today, my formerly premature son is a strapping 35 pound 3 year old, who is exuberant, delightful and a real spitfire. No one would ever know he was a preemie, and severely preemie at that. And since then, I've regained my health.

2. I still have my friends -- from high school, college, grad school, writing classes -- all in tact. That is the plus of being a single mom vs. a nuclear family. And this is the one big plus I'm mentioning, because clearly I would prefer to have a helpful, loving husband and mate to help raise my son. But since I don't, it's great to have my single (and married) female and male friends still in my life. I have a custody schedule so I can still go out and see movies, hike, go to yoga classes, even roadtrip for the day with friends. The major complaint of most of my nuclear famiily couples I know is that all their pre-baby day friends have hightailed it from their households. Maybe they tried to be in each other's lives for a bit, but, for whatever reason (and I think it's partially misunderstanding), former single friends think families  want family time on the weekends and families think their single friends are out having fun and don't want to hang out with babies squalling, two-year olds ranting, a visit full of distraction and not being able to finish a full sentence directed at an adult. I get to have both though...and love the combination of continued interesting adult conversation and hang out time with my friends and then hours of playdough, running at the park, poop talk and silly songs with my son.

There's a lot more positives of being a single mom -- but I'll save that for another day when my son is jumping on his father's bed and making a mess of his home -- and I have peace and quiet and time to write here. Custody can be a  plus, especially when one's a writer and a single mom.