It's All For Me

Calvin came bamming out of the bathroom yesterday afternoon with something on his mind. Both of my boys bam in and out of the bathroom - I have no idea why, but that is the only way to describe the door and lid and flush and door action that accompanies their toilet use...

Anyway, he bammed out of the bathroom and stopped short of me in the hallway and said, rather authoritatively but with a forced-casual wave of his hand:

"Mom, the reason we don't have a nanny and you don't go to work is because nannies cost a lot of money and because we love you and don't want you to have to go to some weird job somewhere."

I have no idea where this thought came from - our only discussions of nannies have been rare and almost exclusively between David and I alone, except for the houseguest telling me I should get one once we move to Kiev. I actually don't entertain the thought or converse about it much, mostly because (as I mentioned before) I'm not sure what I would do with myself while someone else watched over the children.

Cal does have lots of friends who have nannies, though, so maybe this came up in his mulling little mind because of that. I don't know. At any rate, "Because we love you and don't want you to have to go to some weird job somewhere" is probably the best thing I've ever heard.

It put a whole new spin on the situation for me, imagining Calvin and Henry and Charlie making the loving decision to sacrifice having a nanny so they could keep their mom safe and happy at home, and so she doesn't have to deal with any weirdness somewhere else.

I'm sure that someday I will thank them for it.