Career counseling from a 10 year old

On my way home from my dramatic and tearful "coming undone" my loving and supportive husband asks me: "do you need anything" in that careful way he usually does every 28 days...the cautious way men do when they know they have no idea what they should do or say. Red nosed and puffy-eyed, still numb with disbelief, I respond "we need to stop at the liquor store, I need a bottle of wine"....then, "wait a minute...is that bad?" he responds with, "of course not, it would have been bad if you wanted to pick up a box of wine..." this is one of the many reasons why I love this man.

So off we go to the liquor store.

Meanwhile in the backseat of the car is my 10 year old daughter. Being an only child she is very intuitive to her grown ups. But I think there's something else here worth mentioning. I think there's a natural intuitiveness we lose as adults. My daughter knows when I'm on the phone with a girl friend she can ask me for a freezie and 9 times out of 10 I will say yes. She also knows instinctively when something is going on with her grown-ups and always wants to try to make things better. I think, as adults, we forget sometimes to stop, look and listen to what the people around us are really saying, how they're really feeling, and we forget sometimes, when we're all wrapped up in our own snuggies of personal drama, to try to make things a little better for each other.

I explain to her that things just didn't work out with the job I had, and sometimes these things happen, and I reassure her that she doesn't have to worry about anything. All the things a good mother should say, even though the words are all the right words to say, I know she can smell my uncertainty a mile away.

My 10 year old is a star, and I love her to pieces everyday for her spirit. But what she says next will haunt me for days (years?) to come....

She's quiet for a minute, digesting the news, and very sophisticated in her "I can fix this" response:

"that's great, you can work in the school cafeteria"

................................I gasp, and wide-eyed glance over at my husband..........and, to my horror, she follows this with "or the after school program"...............

My husband knows he needs to shut this down, but I whisper quietly "this isn't helping right now"....and he's already stopping her before she has me working at Toys-R-Us or driving the school bus. As I clutch the bottle of wine that's safely nuzzled between my legs I know I will think this is all hysterically funny...eventually...once the vision of me in a hairnet, screaming at 400 elementary school kids is erased from my mind, possibly after I drink this bottle of wine.

Now, I have to say, there is nothing wrong with any of these jobs, except they just aren't for me. I have several references of my domestic inabilities, I consider using the toaster a success, and I drive a sport wagon....large vehicles are impossible for me to navigate. I've worked "get your hands dirty" jobs before and I have nothing but mad respect for the folks that do these jobs everyday. I also know that the parents in my district are all breathing a sigh of relief that I have crossed these opportunities off my list.

Tomorrow I will tackle more job searching, but today, I will pick up my lovely daughter and her friend and enjoy pizza and a Walt Disney movie and just enjoy being a mom to a pretty spectacular kid.