It takes a village ... or at least a Grandma

Its weeks like this one that really reinforce the perks of living close to family. It started Sunday morning with a 5am wake-up call and Timmy clearly not feeling well, shortly followed by vomiting (an extremely rare occurrence in his young life). That, combined with his complete refusal of food, clearly indicated a problem. We saw the doctor on Sunday but were basically prescribed a wait-and-see approach. When he spiked his first fever, I called my mom and begged her to watch him on Monday. So PJO took Timmy along on his hour commute to work where my mom met him and took our sick guy for the day. He seemed to be better that night, so Tuesday morning I went into his room and started getting him ready for school. Everything was traumatic and horrible/awful. First, I gave him milk in a cup with a lid, then I told him to stop feeding the cats, then I made him get dressed. When I finally told him that he had to get dressed to go to school, he said "NO. Snuggle Mommy." Considering he is never anything but excited to go to school in the morning, I took that as my strong cue to let him stay home. I won't deny that I momentarily contemplated dosing him up with tylenol and wrangling him into the car, dropping him off at school and billing a few hours before daycare called me to pick up my sick child. But he was just too pathetic and snuggly to do that, so I stayed home with him. All he wanted to do was watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and he actually sat through about 3 hours of television, which far exceeds his normal attention span for TV of about 5 minutes. He was throwing up that afternoon, just before PJO got home. He had left work super early to relieve me so I could get to work for a mandatory meeting and some actual work. Since I now knew that Timmy most likely would not be feeling well enough for school Wednesday, I called my mom who again rescued me and came up to watch Timmy today. I am really hoping he'll be ok to go to school tomorrow, but the fact that he is still saying "Timmy hurt" is not a promising sign.

So twice this week, I've been saved by my mom. Sure, my firm offers back-up child care, so if I were really in a pinch (and had 6 hours notice), I could arrange for someone (a stranger) to watch him for a fee. But how awful would that feel to leave your sick child with a complete stranger? And that stranger won't be sending you text updates all day long. I usually don't mind working from home every once in a while when I need to (and no one else seems to notice unless there is a meeting or something), but sometimes you just can't get anything done when your toddler feels horrible and is clinging to you all day.

These weeks where all I do is juggle work and childcare schedules are not limited to when I have a sick kid. I've noticed that the mere coordination of all the moving parts to our lives exhausts me on a weekly basis. As a departing co-worker told me during her last week at the firm, it always felt like this was a temporary thing...that we were just getting through and "dealing with it" until we figured out a better solution to make life easier. I couldn't have said it better myself, but unlike her, I have no idea when or how things will improve. We have been stuck in a holding pattern, telling ourselves that we would stay in our current apartment until I transfer to the office near his job. If I couldn't transfer (which appears to be a greater probability now), PJO would consider looking for jobs back in LA after year-end bonuses. While life would be easier in a lot of ways if we move to where PJO's job is, it would also improve significantly if we worked in the same county, regardless of which one it is. But that is likely at least 10 months away, if not more. So it's hard to accept that, at least until January, I will continue to be the only one who can drop Timmy off at daycare in the morning. That I will have to leave the office by 6pm to get home by 7 when I need to be the one to relieve the babysitter. That even on average or slow work days, the most time I can really hope for with Timmy is less than two hours. That we'll be in our tiny 2 bedroom apartment we outgrew a year ago with nowhere for me to work from home despite the fact that I do it all the time. But it's almost impossible to imagine what we'll do when we have another baby this fall. I honestly don't think I could handle getting two kids out the door by 7am by myself when I need to get to work by 8:15am. The dash home from work during rush hour is not sustainable either. And it stresses me out thinking that we'll have to somehow afford daycare for two, plus a babysitter for two, plus a bigger place to live on basically the same salaries we have now. I've gotten good at blocking out the future challenges and just focusing on the immediate present. It's hard to accept a "temporary" challenge when the time line is a year or more.

Despite the fact that I love LA, my firm and the people I work with, and generally like the work I do, I sometimes feel desperate to find a job (any job) in a small town without crazy traffic and astronomical home prices and just start over. Of course, no one would hire someone with only 6 months experience (of basically nothing) with a toddler and a baby on the way. We would know no one and have no family. But maybe it would still be easier than what we're doing now? On a day-to-day basis, I know I can do this. We have a system and we can cover the bases when we need to. It's just that I wish it were easier and I wish I knew when we will be comfortably living within our limits as a family. If someone gave me $10 million today, I probably wouldn't change anything right away. The root of our problem can't really be fixed by money. But I long for the day where I have enough financial flexibility to make changes when things just aren't working and before it drives me completely insane.

This guy makes the juggle, and so much more, completely worth it though.