Not Safe for Work, Apparently

I am in my office, pumping milk from my pornstar-full left breast into my little handy Avent manual breastpump - where you'll find me every weekday during my seventh period free period. Busy-as-hell working mom that I am, I am multitasking. I am pumping with my left hand and checking my email with my right, scrolling through long work-related messages trying to figure out if I'm required to respond, scanning messages from the various lists I'm on trying to decide whether to delete without reading or save to possibly read in some imaginary future where I will have more time. I am so engrossed in my email triage that I fill my little Avent pump beyond its "full" level, so that when I set it down the creamy milk that has risen to the top begins to leak all over my desk. Before I'm able to grab something absorbent, that milk begins to make its way down the slight incline of my desk, over the edge, and into my slightly-ajar desk drawer.

Egad. I have inadvertently creamed my drawers.

Bring on the Fairies

I remember this. This I-have-an-infant-and-thus-I-have-no-time time. I’ve been known at various points in my life to say “I’m so busy” or “I just don’t have enough time.” But when I have a needy little sweetie constantly demanding my attention – either by crying, pooping, or just being so damned cute and lovable I can’t stay away – the words “I have no time” take on new meaning. And the busyness of the mom o’ baby is so much more overwhelming when there’s an older sibling in the picture. At least when O. was a baby, I got something done while he was sleeping. Now while Roo is sleeping, I’m playing Chutes and Ladders with O. or reading him a book. And I do so gladly. But it seems like there’s just no time to do all the things I need to do, much less any of the things I just want to do.

So I want some help. And for some reason, I find myself wishing for help of the variety no other person could really give. Sure, it would be nice to have someone come and clean my whole house for me. But that costs money. And it also involves getting my whole family out of the house at a preordained time for a couple hours or more, which is merely another thing for me to plan, organize, and make happen.

No, the tasks I’d love to foist off on some imagined helper are too idiosyncratic, intimate, and constant to foist off on an actual paid human helper. So I’ve decided I need a fairy or two to assist with those little tasks that never seem to get done, or else must get done but seem never-ending. I’m looking for at least two types of fairies.

One, I need a pump fairy. This fairy would flit in as soon as I’m done pumping breast milk, whisking my breast pump kit off to be cleaned and sterilized. Whether at school or at home, it seems like I’m constantly washing my pump kit, boiling or steaming my pump kit, drying it, or reassembling it. If I could just have some little winged helper to deal with that, I feel like I’d have about two extra hours of time a day.

I’d also love a laundry fairy. I don’t even need him or her to actually do the washer/dryer part of the laundry. My Old Man and I are usually able to stay on top of that, more or less. The thing we can’t seem to manage is putting the clean laundry away once it’s washed and dry. It sits in the basket until it’s time to do more laundry (which, granted, comes around pretty fast these days of muddy knees and poop explosions ), and then and only then do we finally put it away. Actually, that’s not even the worst-case scenario. There are times, heaven help us, when we take the lovely clean laundry out and just stack it somewhere in order to free up the basket. See? We need that fairy.

So if you know any good fairies who are looking for part-time work, tell them to flit on over.

And before you go, tell me: what kind of fairy would you like to have around your home or job?