Today Julia and I were part of a shoot for the department store giant Sears. Happy with the day, we took the subway home and nosily gazed at all the people coming from work. “Work” has been a hot topic for us these days since I have been working a lot from home lately.

Since Manhattan weather is not the easiest on us these days, we – our nanny, Julia and I – are all cozy in our UES apartment until I announce: “OK, gotta go work now.” I give Julia a kiss, then close my door. How hard is it not to react to crying if Julia doesn’t want to get dressed, bumps her head or spills her cereal? Harder than resisting a chocolate bar in front of my nose – and I’m a chocoholic! But of course she cries louder knowing I’m in that room hearing all that’s going on. So I come out, peek through the door: her wailing stops right away. We play peekaboo. And then it comes over her tiny  lips: “Mommy, I want to be all day with you!” Now as flattering as that is, it’s ringing my guilt alarm bell really loudly, so what to do?

Since we have the absolute super ueber loving nanny and Julia loves her too, I know it’s more than just wanting to be with me. This is where a wise grandma’s advise comes in: “Tell her, that we all want to work and give something back to the world. She will too.”

Reasoning with a three year old? Of course! It works: Julia listens when I tell her in the evening that I love that she wants me to stay with her all day every day, but that I have work to do and one day she will too. I explain that she already works – creating her own art, painting and drawing or helping me cooking or playing with her dolls. “You know that time when you are by yourself playing, I need that too and that’s my work.” She seems to understand.

As if reading my thoughts, Julia and her nanny come home with books from the library. The one Julia wants to read over and over again is a book about work. It tells the story of different animal characters going off to work – as police guard, as a chef, as a Doctor, as a fireman… She looks through it for the last two days and today she says: One day I want to be a Doctor. Now that’s a train of thought! Something I said must have been comprehensible to her and since then I can close the door to my room for work smoothly again.

Further still – going home on the subway from our shoot today Julia dreamily looks at people coming and going on the train: “We too worked today, mommy” and she flashes a proud smile.

“I don’t miss him.”, Sasha looks at me with her honest, clever and deep brown eyes. Disarmingly honest. Then she slides from the floatie in the pool we sit on into the turquois water. I get rocked a little and jump in to join her. “I know what you mean”.
I am perfectly fine without Julia here. It’s my three night trip to Los Angeles without my daughter who’s taken care of by nanny, grandmother and husband at home. Yes, I call her every day to check in and say: “I love you! Have a great day, I see you soon, when mommy is back home.” But I don’t feel that urge to hold her at that moment and if I do, I know it comes with duties like building space ships with lego for an hour or playing make believe cooking soups for another hour. So I don’t dwell in my emotions of missing her and I say to Sasha: “I don’t miss her either.” Does that make me cold-hearted, cruel, or even – ohh – the “bad mommy”? It’s about quality, not quantity one says about parenting. No child is well served with a parent that’s there, but not there, if you know what I mean. When hours add up at home without a break playing endless games with your toddler you just zone out. What follows, is an agry scream from your little angel: “Ahhh!” Or in a better case, “Mommy, I need your attention.”, which my friend Hannah impressively taught her 4 year old to say when he feels he doesn’t get enough mommy time while she’s breastfeeding the new baby girl. It works, I witnessed it. The little boy was whimpering, Hannah says to him, “Honey, I need you to use your words. I need you to tell me, what you need.” And so he did: “I need your attention, mommy!” She cradled him shortly after she was done breastfeeding. Our little ones understand a lot, if you tell them. Also that mommy is coming back from a three night vacation soon. Motherhood is a full time life-long gig, so a little trip for yourself is well deserved. Missing the little one is just going to make you be there, but not be here, if you know what I mean.

The other day I was sitting inside a nail salon and instead of relaxing, totally freaked out, that people from my neighborhood will see me, especially mothers. My hands under the air fan, I was waiting impatiently for the cherry red color to dry. Why did I pick that color? Everyone will notice. Well, I loved it and that’s the reason I chose it. So one notices, right? Why was I so paranoid? Because I started feeling something very unpleasant, like a woodpecker working away next to my ear while trying to take a nap, something as unpleasant as a wrong number call in the middle of the night. Except this nagging feeling was of course deeply rooted within my own insecurity and doubt that I deserved relaxing and alone time. But something else nurtured that raging fire of doubt. It’s that something among moms, that I call “pleasure envy”. Tell me if it’s just in my head! But don’t you get that jealous look sometimes, when you walk out of the door in the evening and another mom notices you are off to a dinner or party with or without hubby. Then you run into that neighbor from downstairs with wide eyes and she says a little too cheerful: “Off again?” Or you come home late and run into a neighbor joking: “Where is baby?” More than once my reply has been jokingly: “Oh, up by herself. At two years, she can take care of herself.” I would get an uncomfortable pause, then I smile and the overly friendly would chuckle relieved. So here I was sitting in a nail salon with my hands under the air fan, my eyes darting nervously to see if a “supermom” notices me. (That is the species, that does it all by herself including the art classes, music sessions or museum visits with toddler guide.)
I was just testing the color on my nails again to see if I was ready to jump and disappear from my purgatory of waiting in the brightly lit window on a main Avenue, when someone stopped right there in front of me. Cheerfully smiling and waiving. It was Diana – with a stroller and two babies inside. She pops her head in: “Ah, here I find you! Where’s Julia?” I was ready to jump! Instead I rolled my eyes and smiled back at her: “OK, got me! Now what? Put me on the list of outed moms?” “God no! I’d love to do the same! I’m just jealous!” What a relieve! Just jealous! Hah, I knew it: Secretely we all want to get away for a little while from our little angels. But most of it, I want to do that unrecognized. Maybe that’s a niche: a getaway for moms sheltered from other moms. Again another impossible idea. Better then to keep our own guilt and doubts in check. How? By flaunting your red painted fingernails walking the streets proudly humming a tune knowing you got an hour to yourself!