Cloth Diapers, Breastmilk & Sleepytime

Yesterday was the greatest work day of my life. Period.

My crazy lifelong dream of being a nanny has come to fruition in the form of part time childcare for the happiest, softest, brightest and most captivating ten month old on the planet. Miss Riley reached out with invisible fingers, tangled them in my heartstrings and gently turned up the corners of my mouth in the first moment of my employment.

Gone are the fluorescent lights, stale air, politics and depression of the cubical world. Even if this chapter of my life is but a moment, it is one of smiles, learning, sharing, wonder, dancing, jeans, preparation and joy. One of cloth diapers, patient feedings, not-so-easy "sleepytime" and a ten second attention span. Does this mean that this is an easy job? Not necessarily. I have never been on such high alert while at a job - one short day and I was ready for a VERY early bedtime. But is it a job that I can actually believe in? Darn tootin'.

Too often in this lightening-fast-paced-e-world, "work" entails clicking keys, reading nonsensical and repetitive paragraph after paragraph, drowning in the buzz of radiating fake lighting and learning to live with a constant HVAC-induced headache. We have ergonomic chairs, keyboards, calculators, mice, desks, pens, pencils... Does anyone else find this ridiculous? We are a workforce contorting our bodies and minds into such unnatural positions that we have spawned an entire industry dedicated to the treatment and prevention of stress- and repetitive-motion-related injuries and complaints. Good Lord. Talk about ironic.

So, off I trot to spend the day building block castles, reading cardboard books, delighting in the seedpod of dandelions... perhaps not a "realistic" list of work activities for today's reality, but then again, what is reality?