I said, they said.

What I say:

We are looking for a nanny/housekeeper who can work Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Both of us work from home. We have four children, but two are in school all day long and one is in school until noon.

The job includes spending several hours a day with our 8-month-old baby and taking care of cleaning and other housekeeping duties. At times, you may need to watch the baby and our 3-year-old, and once in a while, all four of our kids will be home from school.

We will never expect you to be completely in charge of the children and the cleaning at the same time. We may have occasional times where we both need to be working or out of the house and we will ask you to watch the kids and not to worry about the cleaning. Other times, if we have grandparents visiting, we may ask you to focus on some bigger cleaning tasks and not to worry about taking care of the kids.

Once you are in the swing of things, you will likely find that you have a decent amount of downtime daily -- we don't expect you to be on your feet all day. If you've done what you need to do and the kids are napping, there's no reason you can't sit down with a magazine.

What they say:

Today, as of now I work for a Family with 6 children I love all the kids, but I'm looking for something with better hours. Your work time is great and I would love it unfortunately I make $18.00 per hr. and cant step down in the income department.

(In other words, she'd like to work fewer hours and make the same salary.)

[Your house is] to far for me. to answer your Q. weekly salary around $300.if you have any more questions,e-mail me , i be happy to answer them! take care, God bless!

(Um, what questions do you think I'll have if you live too far away?)

I am a 26 yr old Indian female affectionate and attentive towards children. I can clean the house and keep it clean. But I can only work monday and friday 9 to 5pm. tuesday, wednesday, thursday, 1:00 to 5:00pm.

(And I actually interviewed this one, and what she didn't say in her email was that she's only available until June, plus she'll need time off to interview for residencies, because she completed medical school. Also, although she can only work part time some days, she wants the high end of the salary range I offered.)

I haven't worked for a week already at my primary job because the family has 8 kids and they running out of money.
U can imagine how busy i was with this family because noone of the 10 family members had an idea how to clean , cook , do homework with kids , etc. but at the same time ive got a lot of experience how to jungle diffterent duties .
They did have 2 girls ages 18 and 15 who they adopted from Russia who helped me a little bit when they r not in school . A good thing wad that all of them went to school excluding summer of course so i could clean the house at this time.
Well now see if my situation willl work for u .
I have a 5 months doughter Kamilla who i bring to work with me . So think if its ok with to have another child in the house...

(I'm interviewing this one later today, which shows you my level of desperation. I need an extra kid in the house like I need a hole in the head.)

Why You Don't Hear From Me.

Envelope-to: WG
From: "S" [the housekeeper/nanny]
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 13:42:31 +0200

Dear WG,

I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.

I went back [to her home country] on purpose to renew my student visa, but my application was denied because the immigration doesn't trust my sponsor.

I could come back with my tourist visa, but it doesn't allow me to study, and I really need to go further on my education.

[My boyfriend] and I have decided that I should stay here for one more year, because one year of study here will allow me to ask for a study grant.

I'm really disapointed for this, and I wish I could do something to help you find someone to replace me.

I will miss you all very much, and I thank you for your patience, you were the best boss in the world! I learned a lot from you, and D. will always stay in my heart.

Take care

S.

In defense of plastics

There are people, some of them bloggers, who occasionally decry the evils of plastic. There are those who really go on and on about how plastic toys/furniture/parephernalia are truly the instruments of the devil. These people are sometimes -- but not always -- also vehemently opposed to disposable diapers, sodium and processed food in general, parenting magazines, cars, and so on.

Once in a while, I somehow internalize part of this argument. Somehow, I got it in my head that plastic toys were cheap and Not Good, and that I should pay a premium price for hand-crafted wooden toys for my children.

I wanted an art table for my playroom. I spent a long time looking at different art tables. I had several criteria to meet: under $300, pretty, tough, durable. I found a wooden table and two stools that seemed to fit the bill, and I ordered it. It came, and my father put it together, and D. loved it.

That very first night, D. snapped a leg off one of the stools. Now, I am aware that D. is, one might say, a wee bit larger than the typical 2-year-old. But this table is supposed to be for children up to age 8, and D. is not yet as big as an 8-year-old. And when this leg snapped, it wasn't a clean snap. Rather, we were left with a chair leg that makes a very convincing lethal weapon, what with the sharp edges and the nails sticking out of the wood shards and all. And yes, D. is strong, but this table is ostensibly designed for children, and one might not be totally nuts to think it would, oh, I don't know, STAND UP TO THE STRENGTH OF A CHILD.

Lest you think it was a single faulty leg on a single faulty stool, the other stool broke precisely the same way within three days.

Now, this table is one of those art tables where you can feed a roll of paper through for endless coloring fun. Except that the little yellow balls that screw on to the giant paper roll holder don't have any sort of locking mechanism. They just, you know, screw on and off. And D. unscrewed them and left them on the floor. And -- and I can barely type this part -- Baby J. found one and I found him with a giant yellow ball IN HIS MOUTH.

Whereupon I threw away both yellow balls and the large weapon rod that held the giant roll of paper and decided that there is a REASON Little Tikes is so popular.

But it's more than that. I'm opposed to the notion that ANY one way of parenting is better than another. For me, breastfeeding is critical, because I am LAZY and I have no desire to make bottles or get up. Nursing means LOTS of time to laze around on the couch watching Tivo. Co-sleeping is also a function of my laziness -- danged if I'm gonna get up out of my bed if I don't have to.

Disposable diapers? Um, YEAH. Again: lazy. Not going to KNOWINGLY create extra laundry. Or deal with a service. No, thanks.

When I homeschooled my girls for the year and a bit that I did, that was also borne of laziness, believe it or not. The year I started homeschooling, I would have had Z. at one school, across town, that started at 7:40, S. at the school nearby that started at 8:30, and D. at home with me and no housekeeper. So I would have had to get all three kids up and dressed, then schlep over to the far school, come home, unload the kids, then reload them and go to the nearby school -- NO FREAKING WAY. Rather than arrange a carpool, I simply decided to homeschool.

I read parenting magazines. I even sometimes try the recipies, even if they are laced with sodium. I don't care. I like things that are easy and that my kids will eat.

I make mac and cheese from a box. We buy frozen waffles. We eat a lot of hot dogs. And we are re-embracing the plastics that keep America great.

Thank you.

About my children, on the occasion of the first day of school.

My baby girl started second grade today. This is the child for whom separation has always come easily. At six months, I hired a nanny to watch her for 3 hours in my apartment while I worked. Z. had no problem with her from the first day.

When Z. was a year old, we moved from Israel to the U.S., and I found a woman who could watch Z. in her apartment, just a few doors down from ours. She had two children of her own, a boy and a girl, right around Z's age. the first day, I planned to sit with Z. to get her used to the space, the concept, the change.

We knocked on the door and were greeted by the mother. Behind her, the room full of toys glimmered brightly. Z. dropped my hand, stepped inside, and shut the door behind her -- with me on the outside. When I returned three hours later to retrieve her, she burst into tears as soon as she realized that I intended to make her leave the House of Fun.

She went to school with her carpool this morning. I asked her if she wanted me to take her to school and walk in with her for the first day. She looked at me like I was nuts. "I go into school alone every morning, Mom," she said, rolling her eyes. Once in a while she still calls me Mommy, but mostly I'm Mom.

In the second grade, it turns out, princesses are passé. She requested a plain pink backpack, a plain pink lunchbox, and new sheets. I bought the backpack and lunchbox and cut a deal of one month's worth of chores in exchange for the sheets.

S. began the first grade today. She is the youngest in the class by far -- she's actually too young, according to the cut-off dates. Tough. She reads and does math and belongs in the first grade. Anyway, she was fine at drop-off time. She came home with carpool and announced that she hates the first grade. Also, why did I buy her a Dora backpack? Now they'll all think she's a baby.

"But you picked your own backpack."

"Well, I didn't know it was for the first grade!"

Ask a silly question.... S. did not enjoy her homework AT ALL, which is amusing, since she spent all of last year complaining that she didn't have any homework to do and her sister did.

D. did as well as expected, which is to say, not so well. He was screaming when we left, and we pretty much ran out the door. Mr. WG called the school at 10 and was told that D. was "not crying, but not really playing." When Mr. WG went to pick him up at noon, he said D. took one look at him and burst into tears. As if to say, "How could you do this to me?" How, indeed.

He came home and ate his lunch (he's supposed to eat at school, but once Mr. WG walked into the room, wasn't no way D. was sitting to eat) and went for his nap. This afternoon, he was super clingy, and when he saw his teacher, Lili, when she dropped off S. after school, he hightailed it over to Mr. WG and hid.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.

When we came home from dropping the big ones off at school, I nursed Baby J. to sleep and headed upstairs to the playroom, where I hauled out about 7 or 8 large bags of trash. I got rid of a lot of toys that were past their prime, or just plain annoying. The sad part is that I really did get rid of a LOT of stuff -- and they didn't even notice.

Now it's mostly quiet in the house -- the girls and Baby J. are sleeping, and D. is moving around a bit upstairs. He'll fall asleep eventually, and someone will move him to his bed later on.

Can't someone find a way for me to freeze these moments and preserve them forever?

Quick catch-up

Well, boy howdy, I wish I could say that my silence was caused by wild adventures or an extreme fit of household organization or... well, ANYTHING, really, but no. Just the mundane silence that comes from not having my housekeeper and my general laziness.

I did have a bunch of deadlines last week, and finding work time without a housekeeper to rely on was tricky. Then, last Thursday, we left for a quick vacation, which was a lot of fun. My parents commented that this was the first time they had ever seen me smiling and enjoying myself in the pictures. "You know, usually you're not in the pictures, or you look unhappy," my mom said.

Take that however you will, I still don't know.

I mentioned that one morning, I took the girls and D. to the hotel pool while Mr. WG stayed with a sleeping Baby J. in the room. "I can't believe you took the girls and D. without Mr. WG," my mom said. So, apparently, I have a reputation for laziness, general malaise, or I don't know what.

Don't get me wrong -- my mom is great. I think she's probably right -- that probably is how a lot of people see me. So it's more of an eye-opening statement, you know?

The kids start school tomorrow. DD1, who will now be called Z., is starting the second grade. She had to read a book and write something about it over the summer. Most of the books on the list were below her level, but we managed to find one that she enjoyed enough to write about. The assignment was actually "Write and illustrate what you liked best about the story." Z. doesn't like to draw. And I wanted to upload her report, but Blogger won't let me.

Yeah, speaking of Blogger issues, the lack of categories is really getting to me. Is it really hard to move everything over to wordpress? Would I be able to import existing entries and categorize them? Anyone?

Anyway, DD2, henceforth S., and D. are going to be at the same school, a different school from Z. D. will go from 8 to 12. S. stays a full day -- she's starting 1st grade. D's teacher will be a good friend of ours, but I'm still not sure how he'll react to the whole thing.

We'll see.

Never a dull moment. And I could use a dull moment.

It was around 5 p.m. The girls were over at a friend's house. Baby J. was sleeping peacefully in his crib. D. was running around, reveling in the fact that he had not napped today, though not for lack of trying.

Mr. WG was babbling about dinner, what are we doing for dinner, should we go to the grocery store? I was trying to work. Mr. WG did not GET that I was trying to work. He sat on the exercise bike in my office, pedaling just enough to make it beep every few seconds, and pretended to make a shopping list.

"Do you need milk?"

"Yes."

"Milk. Deli. Hot dogs? I wonder if we have hot dogs?"

(WG ignores him and TRIES TO WORK.)

"Maybe I'll go check if we have hot dogs. Because maybe we need hot dogs."

This might have gone on for hours, had not D. suddenly crashed onto the tile (I HATE HATE HATE HATE TILE AND I WANT HARDWOOD) and began to cry. I got up to check on him. Mr. WG stayed where he was, babbling about the hot dogs. And then I yelled for him, because there was MUCH BLOOD, and as I have said before, I SUCK in a crisis.

And Mr. WG came and took D. to the bathroom to wash the blood out of his mouth, and then he said, "Oh, it's deep."

Whereupon I raced to the computer to get the number for our friend and neighbor who is an ER doc and who I was reasonably certain would be home because he returned from Israel TODAY, THIS MORNING, and I called him and barely managed to get out words that may or may not have been coherent, and a few minutes later we were at his house and he was saying something about ER and stitches, but I couldn't hear because I was busy hyperventilating.

And then we drove over to the hospital. I sat in the back in between D. and Baby J., who was remarkably well-behaved for having been snatched from his crib. And I think this was the only car ride in my life (well, except for the ride back home afterwards) where I did not where a seat belt. (Hey, you try to buckle up in the middle of the backseat of an Accord when there's a car seat on either side of you.)

We got to the ER and parked in a Doctors Only spot, thanks to a tip from our friend that it wouldn't be a problem on a Sunday. And they checked my boy and determined that he was (1) bleeding, (2) in need of stitches, and (3) rather large for 2, no?

So then, they stuffed his arms into a pillowcase (I am so not joking) and laid him down with his arms trapped underneath his body and then pulled a sheet tightly over his chest, and Mr. WG held his head and three or four other people held his shoulders and legs and I held Baby J. and the doctor stitched and D. screamed bloody freaking murder, and I do mean BLOODY, and it was just awful. But it ended quickly.

THREE stitches, and I swear to you that I felt each one of them go in from across the room and THANK GOD it is the INSIDE of his mouth. But his mouth! It is swollen like you have NEVER seen. Like, I don't know how he will be able to speak tomorrow. And there is going to be some soreness if you ask me. And OF COURSE my housekeeper's 2-week vacation starts tomorrow, so I will get to deal with this WHILE I am also dealing with the other three of them and pretending to work.

And we never did the grocery shopping. And no, we don't need any damn hot dogs.

When world events break through my Zoloft-tinged haven

When I was 18 years old, I moved to Israel and joined the Israel Defense Forces. I met Mr. WG and married him and lived in Israel for 6 years. I saw some dark days in Israel -- I was in the army when Rabin was assassinated, and that was horrific to me. That a person who called himself a religious Jew could assassinate the Prime Minister of Israel inside Israel -- the Jews are supposed to be "or l'goyim" -- a light unto the nations. Rabin's assassination made us no different from any other nation in the world.

Peres took over and elections were called. Netanyahu came to power in the elections, and that was good. And then came Wye. When Netanyahu came back to Israel with the Wye Plantation agreement, I remember thinking that the man had a lot of chutzpah to get off the plane. I really felt that he should have been ashamed to show his face in Israel. He gave away so much and brought so little.

Then Ehud Barak came into power, and things got even worse. People were dying in terrorist attacks every day, yet fully half the country would still stand up and fight for the rights of the Palestinians. It made me crazy.

We left Israel. Mr. WG came to America because the streets here are paved with gold. I left Israel because it hurt too much to see how the left didn't believe there was a need to fight for Israel.

Now we're watching this war on CNN and as I read Olmert's statements, I am filled with the same horror I felt in Israel 6 years ago.

If Olmert is still in office six months from now I will be astounded -- and disgusted. Our soldiers have fallen for nothing. His acceptance of the cease-fire robs their death of any meaning. This cease-fire puts Israel in real and terrible danger. And it reminds me of why I left Israel, and why, terrible as it is, I can't see myself going back there to live. It's too hard. It hurts too much.

Nothing like a little bit of the crazy to shut people up.

Yesterday, we took 3 of the kids to the dentist. Mr. WG and I were also there to be checked -- we haven't had any dentist appointments since before we moved. So we were a few months overdue, but that's not too bad, considering that we moved twice and had a baby and stuff.

OK, so this was D's first dentist appointment. And Mr. WG took him in and told the dentist that D. has Sotos and that there's a whole tooth issue -- crappy enamel, weak teeth, whatever -- and the dentist wasn't too worried. Then Mr. WG brought D. out to sit with me so that Mr. WG could have his teeth checked. And D. began to HOWL. And I tried to calm him down, but he wasn't having any of it. And the receptionist is giving me these snippy little looks and I just wanted to cry along with him.

After Mr. WG finished and took D. home, the girls had their checkups and then I had mine. And the hygenist says, "Your girls are so cute."

"Thank you."

"And your son -- well, I guess he had a bad day."

"Well, he's two, so, that's par for the course."

"I know! Your husband said he was two! But he's so big! I thought he was five!"

"Yep."

"I mean, he's so big!"

(OK, lady, you asked for it.)

"Yeah, he has an overgrowth syndrome. It's a genetic mutation actually."

(Silence.)

"Well, it's not anything bad is it?

(Cheerily) "Well, it has me on Zoloft."

We didn't talk for the rest of my visit.

Well, good.

The pediatrician called a bit ago: Baby J's x-ray looked good. Normal. Nothing to worry about.

Which is good, because I really was completely unprepared to handle anything else.

It is.

I read a book yesterday, Eye Contact. I saw it at the library and read the flap and thought, OK. I brought it home and I set it aside. I read another book and started a Daniel Handler book. And then yesterday, I set aside the Daniel Handler -- it's funny, and I am going to finish it -- but it was time to read Eye Contact. It's by Cammie McGovern.

An excerpt:

"When he was eight months old, ... for the first time she thought: Wait, is this normal? When he was a year, she understood, No it isn't....

She accepted it in stages. First she told herself: He'll be a late talker. Gradually, she began to see: He'll be different in other ways, too. When he wasn't waking by sixteen months, there was talk of low muscle tone, referrals to a physical therapist, a phone number passed along for early intervention services....

Still, she waited six months to make the appointment.

How was it possible to live so long in a state of denial? She can only say this: It is. You tell yourself you're not interested in labels, that the problem these days is too many labels.... You narrow your eyes and see an older boy you remember from high school: the quiet one who was good at math and never looked up from his shoes, or the band member no one noticed until the final talent show when he played a saxophone solo that broke every girl's heart. You can know he isn't normal and still think it's possible: Maybe he's extraordinary.

Yeah.

Various disjointed thoughts with no narrative structure

Well, I think the title about says it all, don't you? We'll attempt to impose a sense of structure on this post by using the ever-popular list format. But don't let it fool you -- this really is just a bunch of rambling.

1. We have to wait until Monday to get the results of Baby J's x-ray. This, of course, is because it takes 48 hours to develop x-ray film -- oh, wait, no it doesn't. This is because Children's Hospital enjoys torturing me? I don't know. (OK, yes, I get that there may actually be children with problems more serious than insane fathers, but I am really not looking forward to worrying all weekend.)
   
2. I hate fasting. It was every bit as awful as I thought it would be, made even worse by the weird sinus headache that has been plaguing me for several days. I don't get the whole headache thing, because I'm on my allergy meds, and I'm not at all congested. My mom told me to take a decongestant along with the allergy meds, which seems to help slightly for an hour or two. But then the headache comes back. And it is annoying.
   
3. I love coffee. Particularly that first morning cup the day after a fast. Sweet, sweet nectar of the gods. And I feel bad saying that, because I know my good friend M. has recently given up caffeine because of her own headaches, and all I can say is, M., my head would have to actually be SEVERED FROM MY BODY for me to give up coffee.
   
4. I have been discovering a bunch of new, great blogs lately, and I have to tell you all how impressed I am by what's out there. Truly incredible. Links will be provided eventually, I promise.
   
5. I have been so touched by the comments left by so many of you. And I do mean to thank you for them and perhaps even participate on my own comments threads, and get a whole discussion thing going, but I just...haven't yet. But please know that I RUSH to read EVERY SINGLE COMMENT on the blog and squeal delightedly over all of them. And also that I wish there were more. Ahem.
   
6. I have to cook now. I also have to work and to get to the grocery store and possibly to the bakery, and in my fantasy world, I'm also going to get a haircut and wax my eyebrows, which have become somewhat apelike for lack of grooming. In reality, I'll probably spend a lot of time checking email, reading blogs, and barely finish the cooking in time.
   

Hold a good thought for Baby J., if you can.

Update

So, the pediatrician *thinks* that Baby J. is fine. She thinks it's that one bone in his head is over the other, which happens, and over time, things go back to normal. But just to make sure, Mr. WG is taking Baby J. to have an x-ray of his head. If the x-ray of his head is weird, guess what? Then Mr. WG will take Baby J. for a CT.

Do we know how to have a good time here, or what?

Crap, with a side of ugh.

Tomorrow is Tisha B'Av, another one of those "holidays" that tells you that anyone who thinks we're the Chosen People is seriously deluded, man. (I will totally not be offended if you skip down to the part of this post that's actually about my kids.)

It's a fast day -- just like Yom Kippur. Now, when people from other religions hear "fast day," they don't get it. For us, it's 25 hours of NOTHING. No water, no food, and you're not even supposed to brush your teeth. Good times.

Ordinarily, I would be looking for some kind of rabbinic permission not to fast, since I'm nursing. There isn't an official, blanket permission -- in fact, just the opposite. Even pregnant and nursing women are required to fast on this day. But ordinarily I'd still be trying my hand at calling some particularly lenient rabbi to get my exemption. Not this year. Too much is at stake.

Forgive me a bit here -- I don't mean for this blog to be particularly religious, but the whole Jew thing is kind of a big part of who I am, so, just bear with me. Anyway. The tsunami, Katrina -- when those tragedies occurred, it felt to me like we're living in the modern day times of Noah. That this is the warning Gd gives, the wake up call. "You see what I can do? I created it, I can destroy it. I promised not to flood the whole earth again, but you people are REALLY. TESTING. MY. PATIENCE."

So. Tisha B'Av. This is historically a bad time for the Jews. As in, really, really bad. And (ha, ha) you might not have heard about it -- I don't know how much coverage it's getting in the English-language press -- but Israel's fighting a war right now. No, really. And it's become one of those "fight to the death" things, and it's a big deal. So I really feel compelled to fast properly, much though I don't want to.

And of course, since it's all about me -- and my kids -- there's more.

Mr. WG announced the other night that he can't find Baby J's soft spot. Baby J. is almost 7 months old. "I'm very worried about this," says Mr. WG. "I think he needs to see the pediatrician."

"Fine," I said. "Then you call and make the appointment, and you take him."

You know, there's a difference between saying, "Hey, WG, there's a big pile of crap. Why don't you deal with it?" and saying, "Hey, WG, there's a big pile of crap. Here, you sit here and drink a nice glass of wine and munch on this tray of Zoloft, and I'll go clean up the crap, sanitize the floor, and buy a new mop."

So he called and made the appointment for tomorrow. And he's taking Baby J. So I have to fast. Because that's how it works, you know? You don't want to take chances and mess with Gd the day your kid's soft spot is being checked for... well, I don't know exactly for what, but for something.

Yeah. So. We'll see.

They always break after the warranty is up.

I need to change the way my kids behave. And I need to change my response to the way my kids behave. Some examples from recent days here at the WG house:

Yesterday, D. had speech therapy. Yesterday, some friends of ours also had a baby, and their 2-year-old son came over for the day while the baby was being born. So D. and his friend E. were both present for speech. And the therapist has her bag o' toys for D. to go through, and D's running around like a wild child, totally unable to settle on anything, and E. is just sitting, rapt, focusing intently on whatever the therapist asks him to do. She gets out a coloring book and sets E. up with crayons. D. will have nothing to do with this. The doorbell rings. "I'm going to answer the door and I'm coming RIGHT BACK," I say to D., who becomes BEYOND HYSTERICAL, screaming bloody murder. He refuses to calm down even after I'm back and holding him -- it takes a good 5 to 7 minutes to get him to quiet and stop sobbing. E. colors contentedly through the whole episode. And all I can think is, "Why are you doing this? Why do you have to be like this?"

Also yesterday, DD1 had an end-of-camp show. Each bunk did their shtick, and then a few campers were called up to each say a line or two about things they did at camp. DD1 had brought home her line last week -- it's one sentence. She's 7. She knew the sentence by heart. So when they stick the microphone in front of her and the camp director -- who also happens to be a rabbi -- says, "Would you like to tell us what you learned?" She says, "I don't want to." Now, there is some disagreement here. My parents, who were visiting, think she was just shy. I think she was pulling attitude. Mr. WG thinks the entire show was a waste of time. I think that Mr. WG needs to fact the fact that NONE of the programs we will attend for the next 18 or so years are actually going to be, you know, BROADWAY-QUALITY. But I do think that my kid was pulling attitude, and it REALLY disturbed me. I was really mad at her, which perhaps she didn't deserve. But perhaps she did -- I mean, WHY does she think it's OK to talk back like that? HOW CAN I MAKE HER STOP???

My other daughter is just a big whiner about everything. Bedtime? "I'm scared of sleeping." No more TV? "I never get to do anything!" Let your sister use the computer? "It's not fair, her turn is going to take a million years." Clean up time? "It's too hard!" Yes, I know that she's 5 years old, but COME ON. Does absolutely EVERYTHING need to be met with whining? Could I JUST ONCE get a PLEASANT response?

Fix my kids, they're BROKEN. And I am beginning to seriously question my parenting ability.