Really! I’ve just been preoccupied or something. Well, I wanted to upload pics, and I need to do a monthly update on Ingrid, and the pressure, well, I ended up doing nothing. ANyway. That’ll come soon. This is tagged career, for general reasons.

First, my LLBean job starts in like, what, 10 days? 9? And I’m sort of freaking. Not about the job, christ, I could do it in my sleep, I’m sure, but about the whole job+family thing. I’m never going to see Dave again, it feels like, between my evening job and one weekly night class, and a second class that meets every few weeks.  Tomorrow, the sitter comes for the first intro to Ingrid, and I’m not worried about the sitter — she’s totally responsible, a pro babysitter, and I have total trust in her — but I’m worried that Ingrid is going to freak out at the STRANGER so much, that the sitter says "um, pass."  Ingrid is great in my arms, when checking out other people, she smiles and interacts and all, but when they TAKE her, she freaks right the fuck out. We’ve been practicing, whenever we can, with her & ‘strangers.’ Today it was my parents, and she cried and shrieked and made me feel like shit, but FUCK, this is NOT an option, for me to never work again. Especially since my car has a leak between the fuel-filling neck and the tank, and goes in tomorrow to get checked out, and hopefully, fixed. I have to work. I’ve been UNBELIEVABLY lucky to have had almost four months with Ingrid, when the standard in the US is six freaking WEEKS, and I know that, but FUCK, it’s hard. Anyway.

So, yeah, I have this evening job, and night classes, and I’ll never see Dave again, but it means Ingrid isn’t in childcare. (The sitter is for special occasions, and hopefully, a weekly appointment so that I can work on school stuff, etc, not a daily thing) Then a job is advertised at the 4-5 school 2 blocks from here, an ed tech position for someone to work with ‘computer assisted instruction.’ I’ve always joked that I’d make a kick ass ed tech, and that it would be a GREAT job — hourly, no assessment bullshit, no parents to call — affecting kids’ lives, without the responsibility a teacher has, that makes their salary less valuable. (It might not make sense, unless you’ve ever worked in a school system.) Anyway, I see the job and shrug it off, but then think "Well, hmm, what DO ET-IIIs make, anyway, at that school?" and because I am a supergenius and know how to find that out, I’m boggled to see that HOLY CRAP, it’s about twice what I thought they made.

But, that would require all day childcare. And it starts in 10, 9? days, the same as the LLBean job. And I have no all-day childcare, and do I really want to work all day? But, all day for an ed-tech means about 9-3. Academic calendar. FUCK.

I keep seeing these jobs, there’s one for a part time teacher at the Challenger center, which is a place I LOVE, and is ALSO right around the corner, literally, like the Bean job and the ET-III job, just different corners.  And none of them feel right, even though I’m confident I could get either of the other two, because of Ingrid.  I just hope that in a year, that there are jobs like these still popping up: local, related to my degree, and that pay enough to make it worth it.  Right now, I just feel like I’m trying to pick the right direction — Bean means a huge cut in family time, but no childcare, and a nice discount, and an easier pumping situation, because Ingrid nurses maybe once in the hours that my Bean schedule will be, I’ll only need to pump once. A day job would mean needing more pumping time, and needing to find a time/place to do it, which would be HARD in a school setting. (Maybe easier for an ET, though? Hm.) Regardless, I’m not applying, because this isn’t the right time, and oh, right, try to find infant childcare with a week’s notice (and I’m ON all the lists, and have been since I got two lines, because it’s a whole lot easier to refuse a spot than find one… and I have no CLUE how one finds a decent in-home provider) but, yeah. I hope there’s something good at the end of all this, career-wise.