I had an entirely different post planned in my head than the one I am about to write. The post I envisioned referred to Caitlin Knight’s comment to my “I Feel Guilty for Having an Au Pair” post. I had already thought about discussing how the flip side of guilt is gratitude, and I wanted to work in some of her contributions. Yet I don’t have time for the post I had planned, and if I don’t write something now, I may not get time to post anything, and I will not be able to look back on this day and remember how I felt.
Each moment of my life is earmarked for something over the next few days – some of it simply earmarked as “spend time with my family” – but reserved nonetheless, so I may not post again until next week.
On this post, the gratitude I want to discuss is gratitude about how our au pair – and the au pair program generally – fills in the gap. You know the gap I mean. When mom can’t get to everything, and dad can’t either. So, with that long introduction, here goes my post:
I am entirely too busy to write this post. I felt as though I barely had time to breathe this morning (not literally, of course). From the moment I arrived at the office – about four hours ago – until I took a break to grab some lunch, I have been busy. Sending emails, answering calls, checking voicemails, revising contracts, sitting in meetings, doing other lawyer-type stuff. Because Thanksgiving is approaching and year end is around the corner, everyone wants everything done now.
It’s funny, the other job at which I was as busy as I am sometimes now was back when I used to sell shoes during summers and school breaks in college. I needed to hustle up and down the stairs, remembering numerous different sizes, styles and colors – that one is code 5627 on the second floor and that is code 4912 in the back of the first floor, and that one we sold out of all the size 8s already, etc. – then run out to the shoppers and line them all up in the correct order, smiling all the while. At least back then, the worst I could do was bring the wrong shoes!
So, my sense of gratitude is ….
I am grateful that this morning when the school nurse called to say that my son needed to go home because he was complaining of a sore throat that – in the midst of all of this chaos and my own complaints of coughing, a headache and the accompanying lack of sleep - I did not need to run over to his school and pick him up. That means that I didn’t need to drop everything I was doing, risk annoying my colleagues, blow deadlines and try to finish whatever I could later … later when? There is no convenient “later” when it’s two days before Thanksgiving.
Being a good host mom (or at least I try), I called my husband first to see if he could get my son from school rather than spring more hours on our au pair last minute. He was on a conference call that was scheduled to last another hour.
Being a great au pair, when I did call her, my au pair picked up her cell phone right away and said that “of course she could go pick up my son from school, and what else did I need?”
You know those Mastercard commercials where they talk about all the money you spend on different things and then the last bit about how the satisfaction you get after the investment is priceless….? That’s what my au pair’s words meant to me this morning. “What else do you need? How else can I help?” It makes all of the minor complaints I have about the simple realities of hosting an au pair – number one being the lack of privacy of having someone live in your home – pale in comparison. What nanny would be available on a moment’s notice? (Not one I could afford.) What grandma, even? (Not ours, who are great and helpful but certainly don’t wait by the phone for me to call – not that I would want that either!)
I dare say that without an au pair - given my life circumstances – I wouldn’t be sitting in the office chair I am in today. There are too many of these unforeseen events, even if “too many” means only three or four a year. Murphy’s Law being intact, they always fall exactly when we are least available to deal with them.
Finally, if I wasn’t in this chair, it would mean one less mommy lawyer to be there for all the young women professional hopefuls in the world, looking at us old hats to try to figure out how to do it all. (Not that I have completely figured it out, but I do OK.) I consider this an important part of my contribution to the world – acting as a mentor and guide where I can. It’s a big part of why I write this blog.
So thanks to my au pair and thanks to the au pair program. I am truly grateful.
Time for a quick break – and then back to my busy day!
End to the post that was not what I expected but is what it is.
Happy Thanksgiving, all. Thanks for reading.
