A Week of Firsts, Part I

The first "first" is so prosaic I even considered not blogging it, but... since this is a "mommy" blog, I decided to go for it in the end! ;)

This past Monday was the very first day EVER we had a "baby-sitter" (the grandmother of my son's classmate who lives in the street at the back of our house) come to our house to take care of the boys for several hours. We have left them with friends before (generally at our friends' houses), even overnight, and, of course, with my parents and in-laws both at our house and their in Brazil. However, I had never let them with an actual sitter, an acquaintance who had never been to our house. This week they had two days off from school and it was a big hassle, so we had no choice but hire a sitter! We anticipate that their Spring Break (which will be a busy week for us) will be even worse! We've already asked the "Neighbor Granny" to help again!

It felt strange, it really did, to leave and wonder what the kids would be doing and how that lady would handle being with them (and her grand-daughter) at our house for so many hours. Obviously, everything had gone smoothly, my youngest son had done his homework and they had all played games together and watched videos only after lunch as I had recommended. It seems like they all enjoyed it and the granddaughter (who lives with her mom and grandma and sees her dad and two older half-brothers every other weekend), didn't want to leave, particularly because she loved playing with the cats. I think they will all have a good time on Spring Break!

I had prepared plenty of food (rice and beans & some veggies) ahead of time and when I came back, "Neighbor Granny" had washed the dishes and said the only reason she hadn't cleaned my (dirty) stove was that she couldn't find S.O.S. pads... and I felt glad she hadn't. You see, even after having grown up with people helping my mom our household all my life, I've never had anyone help me at my own house and I've grown more and more unaccustomed to the idea, to the point that I feel strange and somewhat bothered by it when I go to Brazil.

It does make perfect sense to have help, though, particularly when I think of both of my parents working full time (or more than full time since my dad was both boarding school chaplain + church pastor [which included building a church over a period of 4 years]). Now that I'm working almost the equivalent of a full-time professor and I'm getting home so tired that I often don't have the energy to cook, let alone clean, etc. So... yeah, it would be great to have help. I don't know if we'll ever go ahead and hire it, though... (and we obviously can't afford it either! ;)

Well... I don't like this post, but I'll post it anyway... :P