A Bump in the Road

Earlier this week I had a conversation with a friend about nannies.  He and his wife are having a baby soon and are starting their nanny search.  I explained that with two working parents, the nanny is the third spouse but not in a third wheel pejorative kind of way.  She's the number one wheel in that trio of wheels, and the two of you will have to duke it out for second and last place.  Later that very evening, we got a call from our nanny telling us she unexpectedly needed to take off this week.  This would be her second week of vacation time because she was off the week before for the holidays.  This certainly was not the first time C and I have experienced these scheduling issues.  Nannies are people and they have people problems and issues that come up.  But man!  This throws a mother of a wrench into our schedules every time. 

These kinds of hiccups (medically speaking, they are more like attacks) are another big part of the reason why I needed to change my work/life unbalance.  By my second month back to work after having BB I knew that these types of things would and could happen.  And as understanding of a "boss" I try to be, my "boss" wasn't ever quite as understanding.  So instead of looking at it as bonus time to spend with the boys, I would panic, stress, and sweat.  I'd wish that the boys would hurry and grow up so that my nanny-dependent days would be over.  Did you read that?  I wanted them to grow up faster because of the pressure I was getting at work.  Sick, right? 

Ok, so this week I'll be working from home as much as possible.  While the boys are napping I took a few minutes to cut some snowflakes from coffee filters and hung them in the window to surprise them when they woke up.  It's our way to ask the snow gods for some light fluffy powder to play in.  This post was difficult for me to write because there still is (and will probably always be) a great deal of guilt associated with that time.  All you mamas out there can understand, I know.