I am just sick today over the news of the Upper West Side family who lost two of their little ones to the hands of their apparently deranged nanny. I cannot bring myself to type the details, but my heart aches for all of them. It is an unimaginable horror, and while I do not pray often, I am praying with all of my might to Whomever Is Up There that this family can find peace one day.

We will take flowers to their building tomorrow, although all I want to do is take yesterday away from them. I don't think I've ever wanted the power to turn back time as much as I have wanted it today.

Sending all of the love and warmth I have for my family to theirs.

Mom guilt. The worst. My nanny just called to tell me that my girl has a little fever and that while she is in mostly good spirits, she can tell she isn't feeling well. Knock on wood, this is only the second time in 9 months that I've gotten a call like this, but, it makes me feel awful for a few reasons. First and foremost, I'm sad for my sweet little munchkin who doesn't need a millisecond of discomfort. Secondly, as I sit here at my job, I wonder: should I go home right now? Am I a jerk of a Mom for even asking that of myself? I go across the hall to the only other Mother of a toddler in this 14,000 square foot office to tell her that my girl has a fever and she replies that hers does, too! She's not as worried, her girl is a few months older than mine and she has had many a fever, likely teething related. There is no emergency (knock wood, again) and they are in the very capable hands of our carefully selected caretakers. We both have loads of responsibility at work, too, and this will certainly not be the last time our babes have low-grade fevers in the middle of a weekday. See that? I just attempted to make myself feel better. Didn't work.

Here is a preview of little one's Halloween costume, you're welcome:

Do you guys make deals with yourselves? I think I make an inordinate amount of deals with myself. Deals like: if I go to the gym every day this week I can have IHOP on Sunday morning AND put cheese on the hash browns. Or, like this morning when my alarm went off at 5:45, I had this going on in my head:

"That's not my alarm. Can't be. Ugh. It is. Okay, I have to go to the gym. I said I would go every day until Thanksgiving and I didn't go yesterday. Get up. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh I don't WANT to. I'll get up in five minutes. No, I won't. If I don't get up now there is no way I'm going. If I don't go then I will be fat forever. I am not fat. I am NOT FAT. I cannot set my daughter up to have a negative body image. But, if I don't lose 20 pounds then I am going to complain about it and she will think that it's normal. Is 20 pounds reasonable? That seems like a lot. Okay, okay. If I get up now and go to the gym, then Joel and I can order dinner tonight instead of cooking. Deal?"

I took the deal. With myself. I do this in so many facets of my life that I am beginning to think it's some kind of compulsion. I also put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to do everything. All of it.

Today I MUST:

Go to the gym
Eat a healthy breakfast
NOT wear those tights again
NOT go to the expensive coffee place on the way to work
Finish a,b, and c at work
Eat the lunch I brought DO NOT go out for lunch
NOT eat sugar
Finish x,y, and z at work
Drink more water
NOT get frustrated with Person A or Person B, it's just who they are
Think of fun things to do with my daughter, WE LIVE IN NEW YORK! DO MORE STUFF!
Write a blog post! Slacking! DO THIS EVERY DAY!

How are we supposed to do all of these things all of the time? I want to be an outstanding Mother, a fit, healthy, successful woman at work, an attentive, emotionally and physically nourishing partner to my Baby Daddy, a great friend to many, an Aunt and Sister worth my weight in gold, and a Daughter of whom my parents are proud. Also? I have to keep the grey out of my hair and my nails polished.

This instead:

I took a little blogging break because,well, I'm really busy. I know, I know, we all are. But, my day starts between 5 and 6 AM and goes non-stop until 9 PM. Every day. Including Saturdays and Sundays. I'm not complaining, mind you, because I'm totally in love with my life in a HUGE way, I just can't always think of things to write about. Until this morning.

This is how my nanny makes me feel sometimes:

Now, before you utter the over-used and outstandingly annoying phrase "first world problem", I would like to clarify that I don't give a shit about what you think. We can afford to have a nanny and we have to work so we have one.

Our nanny is a sweet little lady who is amazing with our daughter. She is fun, energetic and really loves her, and our girl loves her back. At the end of the day, this is the most important thing. However, there are a few hundred things in between that drive me bat shit. In the beginning, when I first came back to work (which, btw, was the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life, hands down) our girl was not napping well, not taking the bottle because I'd exclusively breastfed her my entire maternity leave, and over-all being displeased with the fact that Mommy wasn't around. I cried every day for months. My nanny only served to make this worse by complaining that the fussiness and non-napping was making her job difficult and that we "really had to do something" and that our girl "wasn't like other babies". At the time, I wasn't really sure how to negotiate this new relationship so I just stifled the urge to quit my job and toss her out a window. Finally, I had a full-scale meltdown on her, and she stopped. While I want her to be happy every day since she is taking care of the single most important thing in my life , I was also not able to stand for that bs any longer.

Fast forward through about 5 months of her only getting on my nerves occasionally and sans thoughts of window-tossing, she has now found a new way to make me crazy. She is instructing me daily on things that our girl should and should not be allowed to do and how I should be keeping my house. For example, this morning our girl was running around with a container of my eye cream. I gave it to her to distract her while I got ready since Baby Daddy had already left for the day. The minute Nanny walked into the door she said "Oh, no. Jesseeecah you cannot give her that. She will choke on it. Let me tell you something, hear me: you have to tell her no sometimes." Here is what went through my head:

"First of all, you annoying twit, she is NOT going to CHOKE on the small TUB of eye-cream that she wouldn't even be able to fit all the way in her mouth. According to you, she would choke on a spatula if I let her have it. Secondly, thanks for the lesson in PARENTING ONE OH FUCKING ONE!Get out! Get out! Get out!!"

Here is what I said:

"Yes, I tell her no all of the time. I just personally didn't see it as an issue that she was carrying around my eye cream."

Here is what she said:

"Oh, you shouldn't tell her no ALL of the time. That's not good."

Somehow, she is still living.

A week ago, she came in, looked at our living room and said "Jessecah, this place is a mess. What happened?". Startled, I said that our girl had been playing all morning so of course it was a little messy. She replied that she was referring to the remnants of an animal cracker massacre on the rug, and went on for 10 minutes about how we were all "supposed to work together" to keep things neat. Here is what went through my head:

"HEY. LADY. Guess whose house you're in? Just guess. I'll wait. TIME IS UP. You are in MY HOUSE. MINE MINE MINE MINE."

Here is what I did:

Vacuumed while she was still talking, then left for work.

The next morning she was sweet as pie, clearly feeling a little guilty for her OCD outburst. She asked nice questions about how I was doing, how is my Mom and what are her paintings like? Everything inside of me wanted to smile sweetly and chat lightly, all while walking to the pantry, filling a ziploc bag with animal crackers, walk out to the living room, toss the bag casually onto the floor, crush them with my foot, pour the crumbs out all over the rug, kiss my sweet girl goodbye, and skip off to work.

If I close my eyes I can imagine of horror on her face and it is amazing.