More quickies

Oh my god Jennifer I had not thought of Carr’s Water Crackers! The hooooorrror!

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People have started to ask me about another child. I tell you it never ends. First they want to know if you’re dating, then getting engaged, then married, then kid, kid, kid, and I presume then the questions start about the kids.

I need to get this one off my chest. I have no idea about it yet; I have thoughts about Noah having a sibling and I have thoughts about how my career probably would not survive two given Carl’s way of working, and a bunch of other thoughts.

Right now though I have one overriding, strange feeling and that is that in my gut I feel like I was “meant” (whatever that means?) to have two children. But I have had two: Emily and Noah.  I sort of feel like they were the kids I was meant to have, even though it would have been very unlikely I’d've gone and had them 9 months apart if I’d had druthers about it, that is, if Emily had survived.

And somehow it gets all wrapped up in Emily’s absence rather than the question of more presences. So I really, really wish people would stop asking. Even though most people ask either not knowing about Emily or have no idea that it bothers me.

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I’m babysitting tomorrow night which makes work deadline even rougher. I should have said no, but I didn’t, plus the couple in question were getting quite desperate. It will be character building, I’m sure. (Noah is coming along, so that means two babies and me.)

I need to be the first to take my work seriously if I want other people to. If I were a nurse, it would be understood that I need to work X hours and that I can’t do it with a child in tow and that the laundry will not get done while I’m working. But because I’m a writer people, including me sometimes, think that you can do it in dribs and drabs with a child in tow. But the fact is that unlike this paragraph that has been interrupted 20 times, writing a decent article takes some focus.

I wonder if I can learn to write one without it.

I’m feeling resentful that going out to one play (includes shoe-purchasing) and one night of babysitting makes things impossible because that’s the sum total that Carl can do, child-watching wise. To be fair to my planning skills he was supposed to be able to do Sunday afternoon.

I’m back to the fact that I need a regular babysitter. I might have to take out another ad.