Good Dad/Bad Dad
Simon finally got the official news today that he's officially being offered the official job by the official officials in charge of hiring. The HR lady said the offer (the official offer) was sent by UPS for arrival tomorrow, which makes me wonder why they can't just offer him the job over the phone unless, let's say, the offer includes something like a bottle of champagne and perhaps a swag bag full of other goodies welcoming him into the company fold. Sure, it would probably be a set of test tubes and a monogrammed lab coat, but that could happen, right?
My hopes for this job are extremely high at the moment--this moment being the one in which we don't know any details about salary or childcare or just how very much it will suck for Simon to work a forty-hour week for the first time in five years (I know, right?)-- but for now, at least, we're tucking into the fantasy of all this job promises for our future and our family. When I asked him which, of all the jobs he applied for, was the job he wanted, it was this one. When I asked him which was the job he was most suited for, it was this job. When I asked him what kind of job he wanted to be working ten years from now, he said this job. (Well, he actually said that ten years from now he wants to be retired on account of having become spontaneously wealthy beyond all good reason, but second runner up was to be working this job.) We are extremely lucky.
As I wrote recently over at Work It, Mom, this news couldn't come at a better time, as last week Simon confessed that in the two months he's been a full-time stay-at-home dad, he's gone from being a very good father to being a terrible one. I take issue with the word "terrible"--too harsh!--but I know what he's saying; it's one thing to be enthusiastic and creative and energetic and a bottomless well of patience when you only have to do it every now and then, with long days off in between, but every single day, day after day, hour after hour, minute after exhausting minute? Especially when you don't have the magical boobies of wonder? The compensatory swag bag for that would be heavy and jangly with many bottles of liquor. Wonder Boobs or not, I don't know how you SAHPeople do it.
Now that he has the job, though, he has a spring in his step and his Good Dad flag a-flyin' once more. Today the boys went out for the entire day, over the hills to the mall, where they exercised their new freedom to spend a little soon-to-be-hard-earned cash on something as frivolous as it is awesome. Check out Wombat's newest accessory:
Simon thinks this calls for a coordinating mohawk of the non-faux variety, but...I don't know. I want my kid to make a good first impression when he shows up at daycare in the very near future, you know? Let's maybe save the mohawk for a few more months.
Ah, yes, daycare. I said last week that I was stressing out about it unnecessarily, and although some of you consoled me with reassurance that if anything is worth stressing over, childcare is the thing, the problem isn't what you might think. For one, we've been led to believe that the job offer will come with a generous annual childcare stipend (when I first reviewed the benefits pamphlet, I picked it up and rubbed it all over my body), and two, the company contracts with a very well-respected national childcare provider with a facility across the street from Simon's building. If that place doesn't work out (see earlier concerns re: naps in snake pits), there are people in our neighborhood actively looking for nanny-shares, and the new mom two doors down is a former nanny herself and open to taking new charges immediately. So...the problem is kind of that we have too many options, not zero, but also that we can't move forward with anything until we have the official offer in hand. It will all work itself out one way or another, and at this point I only have to wring my hands about it until tomorrow, at which point I can actually start doing instead of just conjuring horrors in my crystal ball from the Glass Half Empty Emporium.
(And how nice it is, by the way, to be able to send Wombat away to childcare when we we're ready to, rather than when the gov'ment is ready--via ending my mat leave--or when our bank accounts are ready. How nice to know that we need this as much as Wombat does, that we're doing this with a smile instead of a white-knuckled death grip on his fleeting infancy. How nice. How lucky.)
(Ask me about this again in two weeks, when it's actually happening, though, and chances are I won't be so serene. But for now? Ommmm.)
And so it seems adverse circumstances have a way of making one appreciate what one does have when everything else seems to suck, and they definitely make one appreciate good fortune when it turns up again (in the form of a bottle o' bubbly via UPS? yes?). Simon's staying home with Wombat full time for two months made him appreciate work more (even full-time work that means he'll have to get up early; agony!), and my going to work full-time made me miss the part-time schedule that had always allowed me to interact with my son beyond a head pat and a shoo-away. Likewise, not having an immediate, firm, fool-proof plan for childcare right now is not so big of a deal in comparison to how much we really, really, really appreciate that we're in a situation that requires us to have childcare at all. All told, this is a GOOD problem to have. Which isn't to say I'm not nervous, because I am, but still, when you're in a childcare pinch because your spouse just landed THE job, you tend not to stomp around and curse the heavens too much, you know? You just tilt your head back and open up your mouth because, yes, it may be raining, but it's raining champagne.
We are so in the same boat as you for childcare. I'm not looking forward to juggling a prospective job and prospective childcare with the no-prospective-but-actual kindergarten and such...
What a life we lead. I'm so so so glad that all has worked out to your (and Simon's and Wombat's) benefit in this. Because seriously? That's what matters!
I'm jealous of your... readiness. My mat leave is up in 56 days and I'm a wreck. (I hope the details in the job offer are what you were hoping for!)
I'm ridiculously happy for you guys. Happy for the job situation and happy that you're happy. :)
You don't know the salary details yet? Maybe it's in the overnight-ed letter. My current employer sent my offer letter via overnight mail and that had the salary written in there, but we had verbally negotiated it already.
I've got no children, so yeah, I'm useless, but CONGRATS to Simon!
Raining champagne! I love it. Congratulations to you guys! I hope the offer is indeed everything you guys are expecting. I just accepted a new job and I don't know yet if the publishers approved the salary we discussed. All you can do is hope!
It must be such a relief to have everything official now. Even if you knew it before, to have the offer in your hands will be so great. It's amazing that you were able to trade places for a while. It's wonderful that you have such positive childcare options too, that must be such a relief. I'm so excited for you all. Such great news. (btw, *love* the aviator sunglasses!) :)
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