...Are you qualified for the position?
Probably not.
...Are you confident in your skills?
Um, about 40 percent of the time.
...What are your biggest strengths?
Not falling asleep between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. while sitting up, loading a drying machine in 10 seconds flat, and belly kisses.
...What tools do you use to reach a successful outcome?
A video monitor and chai tea lattes. Intravenously. (Side note: my doctor had the calcium talk with me the other day and, in all seriousness, I asked her, "How much calcium is in a latte?")
...What's the last book you read (I always get that one in interviews, do you?)
Chica Chica Boom Boom.
...What was the most difficult task you've completed in the last month?
Putting together a train track. I still need to look at the instructions every time. Even if I've had a chai tea latte. Or three.
--
At the start of the new year, I retired from work. (Ken loves it when I say I retired, as if it came with a pension and social security).
I have been working in marketing, public relations, and communications since I was 19. And that was a long time ago. For the last year, I had been working almost entirely from home, which in essence sounds great, but in reality with a toddler and an infant was, well, not great.
We decided that when we made the move to the new house that I would stay home. I always imagined I would eventually stay home with my babies, but that was back before I had babies and knew how much work they were.
Seriously.
I think every girl between the ages of 18 and 105 who has a job and doesn't have kids probably lives in the same fantasy world I did - where staying home with kids would actually be easier than going to an office each day. Well, newsflash 28 year-old Laura: the day you ran out of the Board Room crying after the CFO was "mean" to you in front of your colleagues? Yeah, that day was a cakewalk compared to some of your days now.
You don't need to tell me I'm doing the right thing. I know I am. I know someday I will look back at these days and be so glad I was here for it all. Even the poop. By God, there is a lot of poop.
But I miss working. Sure, my colleagues may have whined but at least they didn't drool on me while doing it. And they never hit me, as bad as things got (but I also couldn't put them in time out. Oh the power I wield as a mother!)
I miss my pint-size purses and hitting the snooze button. Oh glorious, glorious snooze button I miss you more than I miss my waist. I miss bagels in the board room and presents from vendors at Christmas. Some days I even miss black pants and scratchy knee highs (sexy, I know).
I miss hearing that I'm doing a good job. I miss having a task and completing it. I miss peeing alone.
I will think, at the end of a particularly long day where no one napped, I still have light fixtures to pick out, and I have no idea what's for dinner, that these kids would be so much better off in daycare.
And I will think somewhere in a parallel universe, 28 year-old Laura is walking to her car, her heels clicking on the sidewalk, her bag smartly slung over her spit-up free shoulder, and the only thing she's thinking about is what she'll watch on TV that night.
But then, in the current universe, a lot of nights I imagine my Pop Pop Charlie watching me put my Charlie to bed. I see what he would see. My little boy, his namesake, splashing in the water until his fingers look like raisins. His namesake bundled up in a towel and playing with his train while I ask him about his day and get him dressed in his pajamas. His namesake listening so dutifully to me telling him to pick out a book as I sigh my way down into the rocker. His namesake walking backward to me, to land just right in my lap. His namesake pointing for just one more book. His namesake laying on his pillow, and smiling ear to ear as I whisper, "Night night Charlie. I love you. Best little boy in the whole wide world."
And I think my Pop Pop wouldn't care about a great spreadsheet I created that day, or a video I produced or a website I launched. He'd care about that little boy in that crib and how much he loves his momma. And he'd see, he'd see, he'd see how much that momma loves that little boy and his little sister in the next room over.
And that...That is what matters.
