Calgon, take me….to work? February 6, 2009

I do not have what it takes to be a stay at home mom.  Never has that been more abundantly clear than this week.  Often, on weekends, I think to myself “Ah, wouldn’t this be nice every day?  I’d take a nap.  Darwin and I would read books and count how many plums the hungry caterpillar ate on Wednesday (3, for the record), watch sign language videos that — while he didn’t absorb any actually communication tools, he would invariably laugh when the grizzly bears came on, and sit in my lap sucking his thumb and being cute.  And then I would put random things on my head and pretend to sneeze to make them fall off.  What a nice way to live.”

Those thoughts are on the good days.  Monday was not such a day.  Exhausted from our Superbowl party the night before (thank you to everyone who came!), and having just dropped off the cat to the vet to get her teeth cleaned, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with a fussy, inconsolable boy.  Maybe it was because he isn’t used to our house any more.  Maybe it was because his sleep and eating schedule was thrown off entirely by traveling hither and yon and cleaning and cooking for the party.  Maybe it was because he was getting over yet another ear infection.  Maybe he was just in a bad mood.  Who knows.  But the kid was markedly unhappy.  He raises his arms to be picked up.  I pick him up.  He cries and wants to be put down.  I give him milk and sweet potatoes, thinking he’s hungry.  Milk on the floor, mouth wide open, but not for sweet potatoes, just for crying.  I put him down to nap in his Pack and Play and take a shower.  When I turn the water off, I still hear the screaming (and, incidentally, so do the neighbors, I bet).  Sigh.

Then, it’s off to a sick child appointment at the doctor because Darwin had a fever Monday morning, so I worried it was another ear infection coming on.  Indeed, there was something going on in there, but whether it was residue from the LAST infection, or a new one beginning, was undecided, so no antibiotics.  Just another copay, and another naptime missed.

The cat, however, DOES get antibiotics.  After the pediatrician, we went to the vet to pick up said feline after her teeth cleaning.  I thought that we’d just be in and out and on the road to the ‘burbs, but no, this is a good vet, a kind vet, a vet that wants you to fully understand the procedures they have done to your beloved kitty, so there is a long talk with the vet tech about what’s been done, what you are to do from now on, and what to look for.  So for half an hour, I was in the vet exam room with a grumpy toddler who wanted to turn on and off every light switch in the place, who thought that the doorstop should have been a light switch and was highly displeased when nothing happened when he poked it, and who really wanted to play with the ceramic cat hanging on the wall which looked very breakable.  We finally compromised with turning the x-ray viewing screen on and off — all this while the vet tech is trying to explain how the cat had diseased bone that they took out, created a new gum flap, and put in “bone graft crystals.” (No one can cure the common cold, but they have bone graft crystals for my cat).  I’m to give her antibiotics twice a day, and pain meds twice a day, too.  Something tells me that she will not smack her lips and open up wide for her antibiotics like Darwin does.

While we were flipping on light switches, and I was trying to listen to the vet tech, keep Darwin entertained, and plan out how I would load both the cat and the child into the car without leaving Darwin alone in a vet’s office or alone in a car, thereby attracting the attention of DCFS, I found myself having a very strange thought:  “If I can just make it through today, tomorrow I can go to work.”  I can’t imagine I ever had that thought before childbearing.  Why would you?  Before a child, work takes you AWAY from alone time.  It INFRINGES on your schedule and REMOVES your autonomy.  But, after a child, work is the only time I get to check my email when I’m less than half asleep, or drink a cup of coffee without thinking “Can Darwin reach this and get scalded?”  I can put that cup of hot coffee ANYWHERE!  Such freedom!  And, sometimes, I even close my eyes for several moments at a time, without the expectation of opening them to a child who has somehow in those few moments managed to open up the laundry room and ingest 4 gallons of Spray N Wash.  It’s a little slice of heaven, work.

And now, I will be cutting back my hours and not working Fridays.  I know that this is a good thing.  I know that spending time with my child will be beneficial to him and to me, and will forge a stronger bond between us.  I just wish that I could have had Fridays off BEFORE I had the baby.