Jungletwins

I’m seeing a lot less of my children. They’ve been my full-time job for the last 3 and a half years, but now I have another full-time job. Yes, my initial plan was to work only few days a week and retain my status as a SAHM. Plans change. Things change. I’ve changed. I wanted more, and as Mr. Hoots famously told Ernie, “You gotta put down the ducky if you wanna play the saxophone.”

After curbing all professional ambition for the last 3.5 years, I wanna play the saxophone BAAAAAD. So I put down the ducky (2 duckies). My husband is holding both duckies (and they are pecking at him furiously) until next week, when he has return to work for the fall term. The girls go back to school, and when they’re not in school, I’m not home, he’s not home, they’ll be with a nanny. 2 nannies (though only one at a time). 2 nannies for two duckies at various times throughout the week. It’s a big, beautiful, hypothetical plan I’m sure will fall to pieces when tested, and then we’ll have to papier mache those pieces back together and try something else.

One of the Nanny’s started weeks ago, and she’s wonderful. She’s not really a Nanny, she’s an art instructor. She’s been picking the girls up from summer school on Mondays, driving them to her house, and helping them paint with acrylics and glitter. They love it. They love her. Silly me, I thought they could only love me that quickly, not some random stranger. But no, and it’s for the best. Oddly, we all miss each other less than we thought we would. When the girls are focused on school, then paint and glitter, they aren’t thinking about me. When I’m focused on my work, I’m not thinking about them. We all find each other at the beginning and end of each day, and we all enjoy what we do in the middle, independent of each other.

But God I hope that second Nanny works out, or I’ll really be up shit creek.

It’s interesting, I played the saxophone for years, but never got any good at it. Mr Hoots could tell you why: “You’ll never find the skill you seek till you pay your dues…” If you learn anything from my blog, let it be this: Take all your parenting advice from owl puppets and Mick Jagger; everyone else is talking rubbish. So anyway, I wasn’t “a natural” at the sax, or parenting, or even my current job. I made, and am making, tons of mistakes in all three pursuits. The only difference with the latter two is a willingness to pay the dues, something mandatory in raising children and starting new jobs.

So my situation isn’t perfect, but it’s working, because we’re all working at it. Not very cleverly put, but I’ll leave the poetry to Mr. Hoots and the Stones- I’ve got work to do.