I should be…

… cleaning the downstairs bathroom, but a quick update. I have a post in draft about Noah, really, but I want it to be better than I’m capable of right now. Also have to find the cord for the camera, again.

So I actually am, as it turns out, employed. Sorting out the details of what that means in terms of deliverables has taken about two weeks, and during some of that process I thought I was swiftly going to be unemployed again. 

I am not really – err - thrilled with my new bosses (husband and wife team), but since all I have to do is come up with ideas, write about them, and hand them in, I can’t complain too much. Also, after watching a guy with silcone-based glue drying inside his eye fight with an ER triage nurse last week, I am acutely aware that writing is not dangerous in that way. And the kind of writing for which I am to be paid is dangerous in really no ways.

I feel a bit like I sold out my fiction again, because I have already figured out that this means serious inroads into any time I have that isn’t parenting.  But the money and magazine writing career stuff is good in the short run; it’s also staving off an identity crisis.  I add the job to my blessings, for now.

I have to hire a babysitter for at least part of the time (it’s hard to conduct interviews otherwise, for one thing) and that may help find fiction time again, but we’ll see. 

I am still having issues with the whole babysitter thing, which I know are all irrational but remain heavy on my emotional radar. It might help if I could remember being babysat as a kid but the only memories anyone in the system will share are a) being left at a “friend down the street’s” house, a mother with 3 boys that pinched, hit, and spat and a father that would then smack them for doing so and b) being sent off with the Jehovah’s witnesses to proselytize for a couple of afternoons.  Neither of these are particularly inspiring as far as hiring a babysitter goes. I was a babysitter and a pretty decent one at that, but that doesn’t help, as it turns out.  

So mostly I get in touch with people and then eliminate them on some technicality before I even have to interview them.  All this for a babysitter I should be able to hear 90% of the time. Intellectually I know that other people can and will care for Noah. Not like I would, because I’m his mum and they are not, but well enough. Not only that, Noah needs to learn that other people will care for him. And also I think 6-10 hrs a week of someone really playing just with him is only a good thing.

But.

I have no trust in the universe. I used to think I would be scared that the babysitter would abuse my son, but instead I’m afraid he or she will miss something and he’ll die. It’s quite crazy. Yes I should see if my therapist can’t help. Except (this is awful) I don’t think she takes it seriously enough, really. Although I’m not sure who in the world would take it seriously enough, unless they were in my head. I have to say that Lynn takes it seriously enough though; she’s all for forgoing babysitters until he’s 14 and doesn’t need them. 

Between the two of us we can eliminate just about anyone as being even remotely suitable.

Yes, I’m definitely nuts about this one.  Fortunately, I can probably offload some of it on Carl and get him to do the first screening. Then I can eliminate people on technicalities later in the process. 

And yes, busy – busy not-interviewing babysitters, keeping the house clean for the family invasion this weekend, and writing three articles for next week. Not to mention oh, caring for Noah! Right! Which is actually getting to be more and more fun – today we spent an hour at the playground playing, because he does now! 

But also more intense, because he is into everything all the time.  And he climbs. He does not yet walk (well, not unless he is pushing a chair, a walking toy, or his high chair around. Yesterday I watched, bemused, as he pushed his high chair across the kitchen, into the living room, and down the hallway, all of which involved quite a few turns which he handled rather scarily well), but he has figured out he can push a box over to an Ikea Poang chair and climb onto the box and then onto the chair. He also figured out how to push-in-and-turn the knobs on my gas stove even though he has to stand on tiptoe to do it.  (Yes, there is apparently a technological fix from the safety store. No, they’re not in stock anywhere in my neighbourhood. Right now duct tape is my best friend, plus constant vigilance! Gas + pilot + baby = BAD)

And his molars are cutting through, and his ankle is sore and itchy.  Poor boo. He’s actually remarkably good with it, except at bedtime and so I haven’t been getting the evening time as usual.  But tonight he made it down for 8:30, which is only about ohhhh 1.5 hrs late. I have resorted to Tylenol once. He is such a stoic kid. I can’t believe he had to have stitches already.

Oh wait, this wasn’t going to be about him.

So life has taken this challenging, busy busy turn. In the midst of which I threw this birthday party. And I’m glad I did.

But yes, busy and tired and wee stressed out.  :-)