So it seems I took February off. Well, not necessarily "off," since anyone who works freelance knows that not having a full-time job is a full-time job. You find yourself saying "yes" to a lot of different things, because this is the time to Do! and Find! and Create! and Learn! And Earn! And Do It All By 3pm!
I brought this very point up to my mother the other day, and she said something along the lines of "Congratulations. You are now me." And it's kind of true. When you're the primary afternoon caregiver, everything you do is on the clock. And the speed with which six hours dissipates just plain buffaloes me every day. You sit down to attempt to do something (anything!) productive, and after you've taken some phone calls and made lunch and moved your goddamn car again, you've maybe stitched together a few sentences before it's time to pack it up and collect the spawn.
Earlier this year, I got a bit of an extension by enrolling the kids in after-school classes. Robert got very excited about fencing, and after a few disillusioned weeks when he found out it wasn't all about hacking your opponent to pieces like a marauding Visigoth, he took a shine to it. And TwoBert took, of all things, a capoeira class. Because if you aspire to have your child thrive as an international voleur, it's best to start 'em young.
Before the Midwinter Break, the kids had after-school on the same day, so I could pick them up at the same time. In the spring, however, we're trying something different and staggering the classes, so that one day a week each boy gets some one-on-one time with me. Their personalities and interests and palates have diverged so distinctly that each is sick to death of having to indulge the other in any form of compromise. So now, each gets an afternoon to lead me by the nose wherever he wants--be it the book store, the playground, the pizza joint, or the Priceless Jewel Exhibition up the street.
The conversations we have are each worthy of a separate post, because they are fascinating, and intricate, and fixed in the very specific logic of a developing brain. And they'd be perfect fodder for a documentary of the year I was dead broke and had everything I wanted.
