30 August 2012

Temp-orary Insanity

Yesterday was a tears in the bathroom day.

I woke up with a headache, broke my glasses and spent the day in meetings. Not a stellar work day, but everyone has them once in a while. The thing that put me over the edge, was when I got home at 4:45 to find my kids eating lunch.

Yes, lunch. Their 2nd meal of the day was being consumed 8 hours after they'd been given breakfast by my husband. See, Dear A is on vacation again. And it's painful for everyone.

Because this vacation exceeds her contract, it's unpaid leave. We have a friend of Dear A's watching the kids for us a few hours each day, and have arranged shortened work days/alternate hours to cover off the rest, but she's charging a higher hourly rate. Dear A's making less and we're paying more. Painful, sure, but something I had sorted out and accepted.

The pain I'd forgotten (or blocked out maybe?) was the insanity around having a new caregiver in the mix. For some reason, I was thinking, "Ok, 2 weeks, no biggie. The kids know her, she's recommended...." instead of "Ok, I now have to train a new nanny, learn how to best communicate with a new person, re-sort out the dynamics of 3 caregivers in the house and so on and so on...." This blank on my part has resulted in backwards diapers, a runaway dog and the aforementioned food-less day for my kids. That's the part that really got to me yesterday - when my air-eater kid finally breaks down and asks for lunch you know he's really, really hungry. Realizing that, I felt like a really shitty mom. And had to hide in the bathroom for a quick cry.
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