. . . and then there was pickle.

So I had this whole parenting thing pretty much worked out when it was all I had to do, think about, and take the time to climb up on my soap box about.

I am now running around from rehearsal to meetings, memorizing a book, and building a strategic plan for a program from scratch while I am supposed to maintain this idealistic super-parent plan that I hypothesized about when I was still human.

See, nowadays I’m lucky if I have the time or patience to recognize that I have a daughter – let alone analyze the best practice scenario of how I should rear her.

Several weeks ago I knew exactly how and what I was going to guide The Pickle through the landmine filled path that is her development. Today I am wondering if I am going to be able to recognize barbed wire from a building block.

I have always been a very effective multi-tasker, but I know that no matter how you look at it parenthood isn’t something you can schedule in. It is a 24 hour a day job that requires your full focus and cognitive ability in an unpredictable and inconvenient time-frame.

I have another week of full-time rehearsal before we go into performance, and I am just trying to make it to opening without completely undermining all of the work I put into my relationship with, and understanding, of my daughter.

Every day I feel further and further removed from the intuition which once guided my care of her. I knew from morning until night what she needed when, and why she was doing what she was doing.

Today I come home and look at her as a new and growing mystery from which I have somehow lost the key. I know that this is a norm, but it is a new one for me. I suppose I, like everyone else in the world, wanted to share every moment of growth and wonder living through the eyes of my child.

She is beginning the path of separation. I know it is nothing compared to her leaving for college, but it my first taste of knowing she is a person all on her own – and it’s not the easiest idea to accept.

I want to see every moment of discovery, every fall to comfort, and every dream to help build – because I need all of those things from her too.

Pickle’s Papa

OK. I may not be blogging as much as I used to. This whole employment thing is really putting a damper on my free time.

It is amazing the amount of work I’ve already had to do just to get my office in a position to functionally accomplish work in here again. I once ran a company from my home office, but that was a while ago, and the physical needs of going to grad school vs. running a business are significantly different.

I have spent the last four days cleaning, re-organizing, and throwing away more nostalgia from my previous incarnation that I just no longer have the room to keep. I really let this place go to hell.

I dusted about an hour ago and I still haven’t stopped sneezing.

I have also gone through and created a whole new electronic system of organization that is quite impressive including a weekly work log and year calendar with all significant dates already denoted.

You’d almost think I was organized if you came in here.

At the moment I am genuinely looking forward to winter – as my office is in the loft, and I am sweating my *alls off. It is only in the mid-seventies. Good thing this is usually the most comfortable room in the house in winter.

So we’ve been looking into daycare, and wow, is that unreasonable. It seems as though infant caregivers require that you sign up for full-time care regardless of your actual need. We have a pretty good daycare center at the end of our street, yet they would want us to pay for a full week’s care even though we would only want to put her in 2-4 days a week on a varying need base.

Even on the days she would need to go in it would usually only be for 5 hours or so. I think they’ve got a racket goin’ on.

I don’t know.

Anyway, I thought I should let you all know that my postings will be slim for the next couple of weeks as I am in full-time rehearsals during the day, and scheduling every possible groundwork meeting around that I can.

I am busy. Pickle is happy and the wife is enjoying a four day weekend.

I will be brilliant again soon.

Pickle’s Papa

Or how to pull a babysitter out of your ass in three easy steps.

One of the major things that has happened with me getting not just one job, but two - is an overwhelming need for Picklesitting. This also occurs when the Mother-In Law is on hiatus visiting the wife's sister in Seattle (yes, Zero Boss that bitter tension in the air is probably not a coincidence).

So here I am having to beg favors from any reliable source. I have even gone so far as to ship my mother in for a couple of days - having her bail on her adopted library kids. It is pretty desperate here.

I have been so preoccuied with the issue of finding childcare over the last couple of days that I haven't had to emotionally prepare myself for the actual moment of driving away from the drop off without her.

I have not felt this good about myself since I landed the 6 foot Romanian girl who didn't speak English on St. Patricks Day in 1999 when I was so drunk I couldn't speak English, but this morning as I got in the car . . .

That sucked.

I don't like crying. It's not a good look for me - especially at red lights, but there I sat feeling like I had abandoned my child to the wolves. In all actuality I left her with Mya's Mommy whom many of you have read enough about to know is completely trustworthy.

Didn't matter. I cannot recall feeling simultaeously so proud and ashamed of myself for one single act of going to work. I have to admit that I have not been able to ignore all of the subtle and sometimes not so subtle opinions of those who felt that I should be the one earning a paycheck. I kept feeling like once I went to work - it would show them that I was capable too.

In all actuality I feel very much like I've turned my back on all of the issues that I have come to feel so passionately about. I feel as though not only am I abandoning my child, but I am also turning my back on the validity of what I have been doing for the last seven months.

I do believe that having at least one parent stay at home with an infant is an invaluable asset to the development of a child. I think a father can play that role just as well as a mother, but unfortunately it is an asset that we cannot afford. I somehow feel that my going to work is an insult or degradation of the role and value of a stay-at-home-dad because in going to work I have walked away from my job.

I knew this day was coming but I don't think I knew how hard it was going to be to do the job - how hard it would be to deal with the insecurities it brought, and now to walk away from it. In the build up over the past couple weeks to getting work, I didn't think through one vital element - in getting these jobs I would actually have to quit the one I was doing.

One of my flaws is that I am never satisfied with the work of others. I am now passing off the care of my child to someone else, or rather, several someone elses, who I know will not put the same love and dedication into satisfying the lovely angel that is The Pickle. I dont want to leave my old job.

This is not easy, and as happy as I am that I have the work I do - I cannot help but wish I could clone myself to still spend my days with the little girl I have come to know and love.

Pickle's Papa