or were you just being kind?
Friday, June 20, 2008
Proof that I am my own worst enemy: this morning when I was dropping Becca off to crèche one of the teachers offered me a casual day for Maggie and I didn't take it. 'You turned down a day all to yourself the week before you start work?' gasped another mum. I know, I'm a crazy bitch, but I wanted a last day alone with with Maggie before I pack her off to daycare and go off and become one of those self-serving working mums. You know, those ones who simply don't love their kids as much as the ones that stay home with them full time. Them.
All the more ironic given that yesterday with the kids was the sort of day that by the time J got home, halfway through Arsenic Hour* I was coasting glassy-eyed towards bedtime on my fantasy in which I stow away on the midnight ferry to the South Island, where I spend the rest of my days picking fruit, a leather-faced bunch-back crone with a mysterious past and am improbable moniker. Maybe I'll take up chewing tobacco, if they still grow it down there. Jack, when he got home, was solicitous. 'Maybe you'll get a casual day for Maggie tomorrow?' he offered hopefully, moving all the sharp objects away from me while reflexively covering his private parts with a saucepan lid. Last night, I could only hope. This morning, I was - relieved, I guess - to take her home with me. For one more day.
*Hell Hour, Jungle Hour, Feeding Time at the Zoo...
3 Comments:
I'm going to be the first to call the Pet Shop Boys quote.
Actually the lyric is Stephen Sondheim, 'Losing my mind' but the PSB covered it on Alternative
By 
elderflowerpressee, at
10:51 AM
Did I ever tell you about the lovely person who left a (anonymous, of course - but I figured out they were from South Carolina) comment on my blog about working mums? Specifically, s/he said that they "can't understand people who have children and get other people to raise them, and then try to justify it."
Isn't right-wing America splendid?
By Lisa Durbin, at
10:15 PM