Who are we?

When my husband, P, had to leave the U.S. for Germany for visa reasons, I was a little misty about moving from New York and all of our friends, but not exactly sad to be leaving behind a highly stressful legal job. I was going to re-invent myself… as a tour guide, or magazine writer, or become one of those women who walks urban streets carrying a yoga mat and feeling zen.

I had made the money while P was in grad school, and now, I had this chance to be a lady of leisure. However, I don’t know how to leisure and I’m definitely no lady. Nor am I zen. I’m more like the anti-zen.

After a couple of months I started to get antsy, but I still couldn’t find a job. And by the time my German was decent-ish enough to look for work, I was too pregnant to fit in the doorway of an interview room.

And so, I became a circumstantial stay-at-home parent.

I “didn’t learn a lot about myself” nor have I “discovered what it really means to be a mother” and it’s definitely not the “hardest job I’ll ever love.” Also, I am not “learning more from M than he is learning from me.” How can that be? He’s a baby and I’m in my 30s. If he has two advanced degrees by his age, then I’m sending him on the Freakshow Quiz Show circuit.

– The Accidental Teuton

So who am I? Just call me SAHMy Davis, Jr. and watch me tap dance around my unbelievably bad mothering skills. I am an opera singer and mother of Things One and Two. I also used to teach music but, thanks to the economy, find myself both between jobs and ten seconds away from rocking naked in the corner. I mean, is this really happening? I used to travel the world singing and now I consider it an adventure just taking both kids out to the Trader Joe’s.

I love daycare. Besides the constant social interaction, I adore that Things One and Two dine on lamb and cilantro for lunch, speak both English and Farsi and still have no idea what Disney is. Sure, there are downsides. Thing One sat at the dinner table last night singing, “Jeebus Loves Me,”—not exactly on list of sanctioned tunes, seeing as how we are Jewish.

Let’s be honest, I also love daycare because it gives me the opportunity to have an identity outside my children. So when I was faced with the reality that my current employment situation was coming to an end, I panicked.

No job=no daycare and Things One and Two would have to spend all day with me. And yes, I do see the irony in the fact that I have sent no less than 350 resumes and yet have somehow been selected to perform a job for which I am completely unqualified: motherhood.

– SAHMy Davis, Jr.