Patience

I think I heard the phrase "patience is a virtue" at least 1000 times when I was a kid. Patience is not something I have been good at. I have learned to be slightly more patient since Parker arrived…just with him though, not really in any other aspect of my life. Any morsel of patience that I do have is being tested at the fullest this week. A friend needed a favour. Being the "must please everyone" person that I am, I agreed without thinking it through. Today is day 4 of 5 looking after her 10 month old in addition to my own. OMG it’s been a long week. My patience is wearing extremely thin. This little one that I am looking after is epxeriencing some serious separation anxiety and none of us – not him, not Parker, not me….are handling it very well. He whimpers non stop. He gets progressivly louder each step I take away from him, to the point that when I am exactly 10 feet away, in the kitchen, and his cry gets so loud it scares Parker and they both end up wailing. I really do’n’t enjoy the sound of crying babies. I can handle my own child to a point, but someone else’s baby, friend or not, it’s like nails on the fucking chalkboard to me. It’s so irritating. I’ve found myself on the verge of yelling, but thankfully, the thought "what good will this do with babies" always runs through my mind before anything comes out of my mouth. I take a deep breath, drop what I am doing and go comfort both babies to calm them down.

I haven’t done anything this week. I can’t even leave the house becasue I don’t have 2 car seats. I’ve only been dressed in something other than PJ’s once this week, and even then, I didn’t do my hair or make-up. Just 4 days and it’s taking a toll on me already. Parker and I both need some fresh air and to see something other than the inside of our house. 1 more day, 1 more day. Although that thought isn’t even comforting – I have to work at Starbucks REALLY early Saturday and Sunday mornings. Lord help me. I need it.

This week has confirmed for me that, even though it sounds like a good idea, opening a day home would be a disaster!! It wasn’t something I ever thought about too seriously, but the idea of being able to stay home and make money was appealing. I know now that I am not cut out for that. I am not cut out to look after other people’s children.

On another note, my return to work date is quickly approaching. I have 2 plan ""B" options, but I’m looking for Plan A. I could go back to Alberta Health Services – even though they don’t have my old job available, the do have to give me a job, similar to the last, but exact in pay and benefits. The only appeal of doing this is the money. That’s it. I’d have to drive into the city each day and work for a company that I have ZERO respect for, and Parker would require full time care which I’m not keen on for expense and time away from each other. As another plan B – Starbucks has offered me a full time supervisor position beginning on March 1. This is good for a few reasons – the shifts work so that we’d only need between 12 & 18 hours of child care a week, it’s close to home, so far, I’ve enjoyed working there. But, the money would be less than I am making on EI I(and the free pound of coffee a week doesn’t really make up for that, though that’s what they say to defend thier low wages), there would be A LOT of drama at work if they promoted me to supervisor after only 5 months of working there (which as been weekends only no less) and…I’m not sure I want to deal with the bull shit of working with teenagers and those in thier early 20’s. Or the drama…oh the drama there! Plan A….what would Plan A be? I’d love to work at Safeway as a cashier. I could handle working front desk at one of the hotels here. Costco would be awesome – a bit of a drive though. I don’t know…I want to say "there’s lots of time" but, there isn’t. I’m going to work on my resume this week and start looking locally for something. One silver lining in this search is that we already have a day home and she is totally flexible with schedules and the number of hours we use (or don’t use). So it’s just finding a job that I can be happy at (for a change!).

I was thinking about "resolutions" this week and trying to decide if I was going to make any. I’m pretty set on not, but there are some things I want to work on over the year. The word reolution scares me…I equate it with failing. If the boys nap again tomorrow and I can keep my eyes open, I think I’ll write more about what I want to work on. One of the things is writing more. Ha! I’d be killing 2 birds with one stone then!