dear "ooh baby, baby" diary....

I'm known for coming up with many clever and humorous sayings (or at least I think I am) and I've come up with a new one for my repetoir. To wit: At this age you couldn't pay me to have more kids but you can pay me to watch yours. Welcome to the new economy. My latest endeavor? Why, a nanny, of course. And by of course, I don't mean the fact, for those who know me, that due to my fondness for babies and children coupled with my daughter in college and my son ready to graduate high school (you are graduating darling aren't you?) that perhaps I am filling a maternal need to keep my little nest feathered. Ah,no. For inashmuch as my heart aches on a daily basis when I think of both my little chickens going off to college this year it also goes pitter patter at the thought of this next chapter of life.
No, dear reader, your diarist returns to the diaper, bottle, napping trenches in response to the smack down our little economy (but oh so ginormous deficits)has dealt her. She has re-enlisted not so much out of sheer delight over the afore mentioned duties but out of financial necessity. Business at the closet is off nearly 50% and a girl has to make ends meet. Enter SitterCity, the child care equivalent of Match.com and Voila, I've met my match. Er, matches.
Not content to merely do a little after school stint with the grade school set, I've let myself be courted by a younger 'team'. I work three ten hour days taking care of (drum roll, glass of wine, electro shock therapy) Jonah who is 3 and Jackson and Lily who are 11 months (ok, add a cosmo or two to that last list). Never a dull moment comes to mind. This is so not the way I outlined this particular chapter of my life is another. However, considering my other option was going back to a cleaning business (my motto then, post divorce? I used to have one, now I am one.), not only am I beyond the age limit (self imposed) I don't speak the language.
So, I spend a few days a week mired in the daily routines of your typical nutty three old and the double trouble that is twins. They are a sweet little bunch and I do have some fun and funny moments. I also have the luxury of knowing that I'm done at 4:30, have weekends and nights off and (so unlike when I was a full time at home mother) get paid for it! Considering my strong emotional and child rearing constitution, it's the easiest gig I've ever had. Time has not withered my conviction that you don't negotiate with terrorists (read: kids), I'm bigger so I always win and you don't like it? Ha! Too bad, you'll get over it, trust me!
Time has also not taken away my inability to stay in the house all day. Once the morning routine is over (diapers, breakfast, diapers, nap, diapers, snack, diapers...) we are off and running. I have the family truck with car seats at my disposal. I feel as if I should have a class A or B (whatever the 18 wheel drivers use) license as this thing is a beast. I think it would make a fairly humorous YouTube Video to watch me getting them all in their car seats. If nothing else, my core appears to be getting stronger from all the lifting and hauling and getting into that rig.
Recently I took them all to Derby Street. It was a mild day (ok it was 35 degrees but it was not snowing) and I felt a little fresh air would do every one some good. Our first stop is the book store and apparently Jonah has been here. Several times. He bolts for the kid section and I'm still trying to navigate the damn stroller through the doors. HEY retailers! If you're going to blatantly cater to the mommy set, coudja make the doors a tad more stroller friendly? By the time I find him he's already hauled a dozen books out and is flipping through the pages like a madman. I put my foot down that he can only do one book at a time (prompting the first threat of leaving the building in response to an attempted meltdown). The babies are just happy to be out in public. Just looking around is a workout for them at this age. Very entertaining. I'm so done with the routine in about 10 seconds. Ok 15 minutes. I suggest we walk around and oh, looky, a Starbucks is in the store. Of course, Jonah's many ventures to the store lend him some knowledge about the place. He knows about the pretzels (I never even noticed) they have as well as the chocolate milk.
Babies, again, are quite happy with the baby food snack and checking everything out. They are quite dazzled by it all. Jonah is his own entertainment and chatters on and on, laughing at himself. I amuse him and laugh along and pretend to know what he's saying. I realize, too late, that one of the things he is saying is to go back to the kids section. Ah, negative private. The Captain is giving the order to clear out. Another attempt at a breakdown, another thinly veiled threat to go home now and we are off and strolling outside.
I then find myself in a place so alien to my personal senses and affronts every aspect of financial practicality that I am momentarily frightened that I have left the planet. Where is your diarist? A place called Magic Beans. My first thought? WTFW? My second? How long have I not had young children? My third? WTFW?
Are you kidding me folks? High chairs that look like something out of the Jetsons at nearly $200 (rut roh astro!). AND, and they have swatches of fabrics to pick from. And they come with review from magazines:
"Work of Art", "A stylish baby chair for todays generation of parents" (who the hell is sitting in the contraption?), "Sleeker lines that go with the rest of the furniture giving baby a head start on good taste". "Puts baby in command". I repeat. WTFW?
Don't get me stahted on the strollers. Floor models on sale from $400-$800? Want a lower priced newer model? Pick a color from the swatches at $274. But if you want the Paul Rich design that will cost you $299. You've got to be kidding? While I'm busy taking notes on all this on my blackberry Jonah is running around yelling out all the things he wants for Christmas and the twins are attempting to pull down anything they can get their hands on. My head is ready to implode or explode (or both) with all the things that I can think of that are so very wrong with this picture. And, don't even get me stahted on all those how to books. You want to know how to? I'll come to your house and let you know. Better yet, I'll send my mother and my ex mother in law. You'll never need another one of those books again. By the time I leave I am actually feeling bad for today's generation of mothers with little ones. It appears that the great machine of capitalism has wormed it's way quite nicely into their heads and is playing the mind game of the century on them.
We leave. I struggle, once again, to navigate the double stroller out the door. It has not ocurred to Magic Beans to take some of their obscene profits and put in stroller friendly doors. Hello, irony? Good bye overpriced and mostly unnecessary objects. Puts baby in command? I. Don't. Think. So. I do think I need a drink and it's only 11am. Next stop, Panera.
Again, the nightmare doors and I've broken into a sweat by the time I get us all in. I inhale a soup while feeding the babies and watching Jonah, once again, totally entertain himself. It occurs to me, a tad late in the morning, that I should not have ANY liquids when I am out with them. Why? Minor detail. How would I possible get a double stroller and a 3 year old into the ladies room? I whisk the team out of there but not without Jonah walking off on me into the busy restaurant not once but twice. Yes, that was me walking out of the joint holding a 3 year old sideways at my waist and navigating a double stroller out of yet another nightmare door.
Due to my liquid intake I have the need to really get them home. Now. It is nearing noon time, which is nearing nap time. Ok for the babies as they are in the stroller. Not so much Jonah. He has become the poky puppy. I'm attempting to go into power walk mode but he's bobbing and weaving on the sidewalk as he chats to himself, giggles, whines, cries, giggles again. It then occurs to me that this is the equivalent of many a night out in town back in the day, with one of my best friends who liked her vino and was hugely entertaining in her post vino persona. I was with a three year old drunk. I would have burst out laughing at the thought but was, by then, having pressing bladder issues.
And that, dear readers, is a typical day in these not so typical times.
Ah, the exception. Many times over the past couple of months when I'm out and about with my little team I hear the following: "Oh, twins, how lucky for you?" "Look how quickly you got your figure back", and on and on. I realized early it wasn't worth it to explain the deal and it really is quite amusing. Until. Well, until. A moment please while I refresh my drink....
I'm coming back from a walk the other day and am pushing that double stroller up the hill. A woman comes out of a neighbors house (she is the dog walker) and I recognize her and say hello. She utters the words I have been expecting and dreading.
"Oh hi, are those your grandbabies?"
WTFW? Would I not have mentioned that in the past gazillion times we have run across each other in the past few years. (Hello? Irony again? She works at the local wine store)
Well, dear reader, truth be told I have been waiting for that comment. I have been bracing for the impact. I knew it was going to happen. But still, wtfw?
A little advice to the world via a story:
In one of my past lives I was a closing paralegal. During the wild west real estate days of the early 80's I was doing 20 closings a week (those were some fun times!). One in particular was postponed due to (so I thought) a baby, or a child care situation, something to that effect. They show up a couple of days later. The woman is rather large. I inquire as to when she is due. She replies (and keep in mind she is British so it is that more scathing) "I beg your pardon, I am not pregnant".
Moral of that story? Unless your giving birth in front of me, I ain't asking. Ditto for anyone I see with young children that looks like they could've known Lincoln. Assume nothing.
Now really. I must go. The heavily padded room is beginning to get to me and I'm thirsty.