15.2.12 - The stinky fruit carbon tax

I had to bring my son home from daycare and leave work early yesterday because he had a bout of conjunctivitis, a big no-no in daycare centers. On a good day, a daycare center, no matter how clean it is, can be considered a petri dish of harmless but annoying minor ailments. It’s winter here at the moment (read: breeding ground for bacteria) so the likelihood of him catching something is slightly higher than usual.

So today I am working from home. Normally, that would mean missing meetings and “catching up” but with today’s technology, my boss could be in Tanzania and it wouldn’t make a difference – I tuned into two meetings via Skype and have enjoyed a regular series of emails back andforth that I would have with him and other colleagues if I was sitting mere feet away.

So that’s good, right? I can do it all!

My friends have long chided me about my inflated sense of ego when it comes to “doing it all” because I always seem to forget that something, no matter how minor it is, will slip through the cracks in my attempt to be superwoman. Working from home, all of my “jobs” are in play; one as an editor, another as Queen of Domesticity (read: wife) and most importantly, engaged parent. This morning, I was pretty sure I had all my bases covered. The baby went down for a morning snooze; the washing was on, I was answering emails and was about to tune into a meeting and I had even put pears on the stove to cook so baby boy could have some stewed fruit in the afternoon. Brilliant!

Or so I thought. I suddenly noticed that the sweet smell of stewed fruit had turned unpleasant. Was that damn gardener from next door smoking near the kitchen window again? No. I had just left the pears on too high a heat and they had burned into the pot. I watched helplessly as smoke generously filled my kitchen and wafted through my house.

As a new parent who reads way too many internet articles, I internally freaked. Shit! My house was filling with deadly carbon fumes that will surely cause my child to have emphysema and a third nipple! What to do? Common sense prevailed and I opened up every window I could to air out the house and cooled down the offensive cookware before quickly nipping outside to throw it in the garbage. But what now? How will I get all the smoke out of the house? Is it creeping into his bedroom where he’s sleeping soundly? What have I done? Will I be arrested for bad parenting/crappy cooking? So on and so forth. The inside of my head is really a hot, stinking mess sometimes.

Shortly after disposing of the toxic pot, my son woke up and my boss called on Skype to start the next meeting. The meeting lasted about 25 minutes, in which time he needed to be breastfed, changed, dressed and have some solid food as well. I happily achieved all of this and scribbled out notes out in my fuzzy shorthand while my boss was firing off directions in Hebrew.

Superpowers slowly returning. Hysteria subsiding. My child will survive another day of my parenting. Multitasking ho!

To be sure of anything, I am a woman. The rest is commentary.