Wanted: Kindly Grandmother with No Life of Own

I am involved in The Babysitting Wars of 2005. Now that little O is on the road to recovery, I may at last be able to say YES! to some form of work and finally get going on the next Oh-Good-Lord-Please-Let-Me-Get-It-Done draft of my screenplay. But for the fact that my mother and mother-in-law have craftily formed a rebellious alliance and have started to refuse to baby sit. Not in a ‘screw you and your dreadful spawn’ kind of way. More a ‘I have my own life and it happens just when you need me to babysit’ kind of way. This means that I’m endlessly having to re-arrange everything because my mother-in-law has a bridge game/haircut/colonic irrigation or my mother has decided to take on even more work than she’s already doing. God Forbid there should be any space in her life not filled with work. Hence, just when I’ve finally decided to emerge from my cocoon of tracksuit pants and daytime telly, the Rebel Two have simultaneously told me to stuff my two days a week – they’ve got plans.

Have been checking out day-care centres. Oh gentle souls these places are not for the squeamish. Reminiscent of Charles Dicken-esque orphanages, the ones I can afford have scores of snotty-nosed sproglets lying on makeshift beds in dark rooms, making a collective moaning noise. Mooooooaaaannn.... On a recent visit to a community centre that had been recommended to me, I opened the door to see what the facilities were like. A teary eyed girl grabbed her backpack and sprung up to me. Mommy? Home? She asked. I nearly said yes, just to stop her lip wobbling. Not that I can actually get little O into any of these places. Most of them have a 12 month waiting list. So for now, I’m trying to devise cunning plans to get the Rebel Two on side. Hell, I’ll even give my mother-in-law a home colonic if it gets me more hours…

And I've just spent the weekend at an intensive Jewish Learning seminar. Interesting lectures. Pity the place was swarming with Jews.