I am job hunting, looking for that fabled “what I am going to be when I grow up.”
It is not an easy thing to do. I look at job descriptions and think, is that really me? Do I fit that? Can I do that? What if I can do most of it?

It is an odd time, full of doubts and insecurities. Especially since I don’t really want to succeed at it. I want to stay home snuggled up with my baby, nursing and fully embracing his youngest years. Why doesn’t Stay at Home Parent pay anything? It should, I certainly fill enough roles. At the very minimum, I should be able to list some of my responsibilities on my resume, it’s not as if I have been sitting at home eating bon-bons for the last year.

I wonder what I would earn if I was doing all my jobs outside the home, instead of inside it?

Let’s see…. In order to get an idea of what my time is worth, I went to Salary.com and looked up the various jobs I do within my zip code. According to the midrange salaries for the various positions, I should be a wealthy woman:

Housekeeper
$22,000.00 year

Chef (Fast Food Cook)
$33,000.00 year

In home Nurse
$50,000.00 year

Personal Assistant
$45,000.00 year

Secretary
$35,000.00 year

Chauffeur
$35,000.00 year

Nutritionist
$58,000.00 year

Teacher
$30,000.00 year

Day Care Provider
$30,000.00 year

Obviously I can’t do all these full time, so let’s assume I am only doing them 1/3 as much as the professionals are (remember, I can’t leave my job to go home, and working nine part time jobs is actually possible, if you are working 24/7). At 1/3 annual salary for each job, added together, I should earn approximately $109,000.00 a year.

Wow. The work I do at home is as valuable as the work I would do as a lawyer! Sadly, it doesn’t pay in cash, only in drooly, sticky love. (Okay, and lots of hand made artwork.)

What does this financial revelation really mean? Well, maybe it means that all you stay at home parents out there who feel as though you “aren’t contributing” to the household should rethink your definition of contribution. If you were to pay others to do what you do, you would have some pretty ridiculous bills.

Well, the boss is demanding my attention, so I am off to work! Here, why don’t you enjoy an oft requested (by Hatchet anyway) video of Otter toddling while I go sweep up scattered and stepped on Goldfish:

It was late, nearing the witching hour, and there I was, walking the boards in flannel with a baby over my shoulder. As I hummed the burping song (my cheesy version of We Will Rock You) and patted Otter’s jammie clad bottom, I was suddenly struck with a vivid sense memory from a time long ago.

You know, the fabled Time before children.

There was a crisp cold smell, and a clack clack swish sound, and a trembling sensation from the thousands of people stomping and clapping.
Stomp Stomp
Clap
Stomp Stomp
Clap
I was back in time over a decade ago; at the first Stanley Cup Finals game between the Colorado Av’s and the Detroit Red Wings. Prince was playing in the background, an adaptation of “Let’s go Crazy” re-written to be “Cup Crazy” and I was there, newly wed to First Husband, stomping and screaming and loving every minute. I was reveling in the combined energy of the crowd, and thrilled to be close to the ice for such a pivotal game.

I shook my head, and was back in my house, in my thirties, pacing the floor with a baby.
Yes, I thought, I used to be different.

It’s so easy to forget the prior incarnations of my life. When I was a wild young girl, a swing dancer, a professional witch. When I used to braid jewelry into my hair, and wear rings on every finger, and then every second knuckle of every finger. When I would go to a new bar, just to meet new people, and dance with someone who really didn’t mean anything to me at all. The days when I would hit the thrift store, create a crazy outfit that had no style but my own, and then wear it out. When I would hop a Greyhound bus to California with $200 in my pocket and the simple belief that I would be fine, on my own, no matter what.

The past seven years of my life have been so bloody serious. They have been an amazing journey, but they have demanded so much of my soul that I dropped everything else to get through them. Some might say I separated the wheat from the chaff, but I think I may have discarded a bit of wheat too.

I used to attend drum circles every week. I would cart my giant Djembe (The one I bought from an African drum designer in San Diego and then flew home in it’s own seat, lovingly patting it’s hand carved images) to circle, and then lose myself in a swirl of incense and rythym for hours. Hours. I had callouses on my hands and arms from striking the drumhead over and over.

Now my hands have gone soft, and the Djembe sits silent in a corner.

How did this happen?

Is there a way to resuscitate the parts of the old me that bring a pang to my stomach when I think of them or are they relegated to midnight flashbacks and fond reminisences? Am I doing my children a favor by not showing them this wild past me or am I just insuring that they will alienate themselves from me when it is time for their own wild child to emerge? Is there even time for me to pull these past incarnations out of the closet and dust them off? I don’t even have time to shower most days, how will I find the time to Lindy Hop?

Eventually Otter fell asleep, and I was able to set him down, and go to sleep myself. Sadly, I didn’t wake up any closer to the girl at the game, than I was when I remembered her.

Okay, two posts in one day is annoying, I agree, but I finally have two minutes to myself today and frac I need to vent!

I know I am a big AP (as in Attachment Parenting or small fiendish children hanging on you all day and night forever) advocate, and I know I voluntarily signed up to nurse for two years, and to stay home with my son, and to co-sleep and baby wear.

BUT DAMMIT I WANT MY PRIVACY BACK!!!!

Not all the time, just every now and then. You know, ten or fifteen minutes a day?

I used to dream of saving the world, or traveling in space, or being discovered for some artsy foreign film, or at least winning a huge Toxic Torts case. Now I dream of peeing, alone.

That’s right! Three years of educational hell and two hundred thousand dollars in student loans and my highest aspiration is eliminating in privacy!!

Otter is in such a needy place right now! (Read: He doesn’t nap and is therefore psycho) I can’t leave him in a room/crib/walker/exersaucer/whatever by himself for any time at all without him screaming! And he can scream! His little soft voice goes all sonic death ray on me as he strips his vocal cords in his attempts to be heard!

So what is a mom do? Well…. this mom finds herself either ignoring the gut wrenching screams coming from the bedroom whilst I pee…. or I bring him into the bathroom with me where I get to play the “No baby, you can’t play with the chemicals/toilet/toilet paper/toothbrush/hair dryer/choking hazard/first aid kit/ Q-tips/ medicine bottles/ eyebrow scissors/ razor blades/ poisonous gas dispenser” game, whilst I pee.

Either way, I don’t get to pee in peace. It seems like such a small thing, the chance to use the bathroom alone, and without any sense of urgency, but it turns out to be one of the trickiest things of all.

Is he like this because I am an AP parent? Are all children this way? Do other parents get to pee alone? It’s really what I want, a little peace, a little privacy, a chance to pee in private, with no screaming children in the background.

Isn’t that a goal worthy of my dearly bought talents?