I have been reeeeal quiet lately. I mean I haven’t actually been quiet – I have in fact been making quite a ruckus in my house, stomping around, dismantling things, making use of every spare inch of space that my place does not have and making a real unholy mess. But I haven’t felt compelled to write about it just yet. These days, I am working three jobs.
There’s the job I’m paid for, where I am obligated to be for 7.5 hours out of each day but actually takes up 10.5 when you factor in transportation and preparation. It’s good, but I have to talk to strangers and I feel pressured to blow-dry my hair, which knocks it down a whole bunch of points. Then there’s the unpaid-yet-arguably-more-difficult job of shepherding a young child through life, ensuring that she is adequately clean, dressed, fed, slept and supported emotionally. A disproportionate amount of this job involves dressing stuffed animals in doll clothes and sparkly gewgaws. It is not rare to hear “MAMA! Can you put the giraffe’s ears inside this easter egg!?” or “THE BEAR NEEDS ANOTHER NECKLACE! I can’t do it! Mama you do it!” usually while I am in the other room with chicken juice all over my hands.
I love this job and I’m good at it. In fact, if they paid me 80 grand a year to do it – or hell even 60 – I’d walk away from the office job so fast I’d probably leave my inside shoes behind. But it’s the third unpaid job that’s keeping me hopping these days. And actually this job isn’t only unpaid, it actually COSTS me. This is the job of renovating and making things. Each evening I become a project manager, carefully plotting out a schedule of the evening’s plans in my head.
This week’s plans look something like this:
5:20 p.m. – get home. Feed child delicious nutritious goldfish crackers I made the other evening after work. Feed crazy pets while cursing.
5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – dress stuffed animals in various shreds of cloth, bits of costume jewellery, the aforementioned easter egg halves, hair elastics, mardi gras beads, etc.
6:00 p.m. – begin to cook nutritious well-balanced dinner for family.
6:30 p.m. – husband comes home. Takes over animal-dressing duties. Snacks on imaginary play food served by young child.
6:45 or 7:00 p.m. – family begins eating well-balanced dinner.
7:05 p.m. – husband and I are finished well-balanced dinner. Daughter still thinking about it.
7:30 p.m. – child finishes dinner (or close enough), drinks milk, maybe has yoghurt which buys me some project-management time. Maybe toss in a load of bread or pizza dough, bake muffins, or make more damn goldfish cookies. **** sometimes there is a bath here. Maybe twice a week. Don’t judge me, my child doesn’t stink. During bathtime I will intend to clean the toilet and surroundings but will actually spend my time on facebook. ****
8:00 p.m. – sew wings of peacock Halloween costume. I’m not sure what peacock wings even look like though I am sure they must have them. OR put handles on newly-painted kitchen cabinets OR (last week) put another coat of mortar on my fireplace bricks OR knit an elaborate sweater that has taken so long it’s on the verge of not fitting her anymore OR sketch out plans for an entirely new house because I’m fed up with the current one OR plan how to make peacock feet out of polar fleece. 9:00 p.m. – throw in a load of laundry. Daddy attempts to brush child’s teeth and wash her hands, which takes about 15 minutes and a lot of bargaining. Child is usually naked by now. Since she became potty trained and able to undress herself, she has become a nudist.
9:30 p.m. – Stories. Wrangling her into pyjamas either before or after stories, then bed. I am embarrassed about this. It is my major failing in my career as a parent of a small child, that she doesn’t get to bed until my own bedtime. My mom likes to tell me that I ‘wasn’t a sleeper’ either but the fact is, my kid’s happy enough to sleep in until almost 9 a.m., she is just wired at night and firing on all cylinders. The peak of her day, mentally, is between 7:30 and 10 p.m., it’s so nuts. I am trying to work out the intricacies of naps, daycare, bedtimes, but it’s all so much scheduling and coercing and truthfully I don’t have that much energy for it, given all my jobs.
Then I go to bed. It’s glamorous, I know, but at least while I’m in bed I use my ipad to ‘design’ fantasy houses before falling asleep. Anyway, so far, my fireplace is done (well 90% done) and it looks amazing. I can’t believe how covering up the bricks with mortar and then white paint has transformed my entire living room, like it’s opened it right up.
What began as painting a chair turquoise last year led to painting my kitchen cabinets red and white (damn you Pinterest!) so I have been painting quite a lot lately. My brother brought home a respirator for me to use, since the BIN primer I used for the fireplace AND the kitchen cabinetry is rather toxic-smelling, only I don’t have respirators for the entire family so we have to plan for Nora to either be out of the house or in the basement while I am actively using it. It’s proving to be a bit tricky, and it’s causing the whole thing to take an unreasonable amount of time. Time during which we have had to get used to having no cupboard doors on our (messy) kitchen, or even fronts on our drawers. I dismantled everything while hubby was away on a thanksgiving fishing trip, and was henceforth committed to finishing the job. Thankfully, we are in the home stretch: all painting should be completed this coming weekend, and then the new handles can go on. I will post pictures when I am done.
Oh and also I am pregnant.
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