Gerritt's First Gingerbread House

This evening Gerritt & I made a gingerbread house. It was the first gingerbread house for both of us & this activity was totally spontaneous. As you may have heard, our nanny is out of the country (she is returning tomorrow evening). After taking one week off work over the Thanksgiving break & having my husband take another 2 weeks off to care for our kids, I was in desperate need to find a babysitter for one more day - tomorrow. I thought about staying home myself (how important is this meeting anyways?), I tried to convince my hubby to take another day off work, & I've also tried to solicit help from his Mom - all unsuccesfully. Too bad they had a fight a couple of days ago, & he was so irritated with her, he prohibited me from calling & inviting her over (me saying, "I didn't have a fight with her, so I am calling & inviting her over!" didn't go over so well).
The meeting I was in such a desperate need to attend was my clinic's semiannual All Clinician Meeting. Let me see... A chance to see & network with old friends & colleagues, interesting continuing education presentations (a set number of continuing ed hours is required for my ARNP license), Christmas dessert potluck, free lunch (probably courtesy of a drug rep), & relaxing & intellectually stimulating day that I would get paid for vs. being on Mom duty for the whole day instead. The choice was easy, so an intense search for childcare began. It's not that I don't enjoy spending time with my children (I really do!), but after more than a week of togetherness, I need to venture out.
Thankfully, my husband remembered about the emergency childcare available through Microsoft (I am so grateful for this company's wonderful benefits yet again). For only $4/hour we arranged for a nanny from the Nannies For Hire agency to come to our house for the duration of my meeting. Of course, no one will work for $4/hour, so the way it works is that Microsoft subsidizes the hourly cost for up to 100 hours/year (the agency really charges $20 or more/hour). The emergency childcare may be used in order to prevent missing work in cases when one's other childcare arrangements fall through or the child is mildly ill. We had the option of dropping Gerritt & Sophia off at the Bright Horizons (the best childcare there is around here) or have a nanny come to our house. I've decided to have someone come to our home to minimize the kids' stress (especially Sophia's).
Unfortunately, I happen to be one of those people who has to clean before the housekeeper comes (you know what I mean). So several hours later, the carpets were vacuumed, the floors were washed, the dishes washed & put away, the kitchen countertops polished, the kitchen table decluttered, the kids' toys organized, grocery shopping done, & dinner made (heaven forbid, the nanny would not have enough to feed the kids!). I also typed up a list of must-have information (kids' likes/dislikes, phone numbers, daily routine schedule, etc.) for the nanny.
As usual, my little "tail," Gerritt, went to the grocery store with me where we saw the gingerbread house kit. I bought it with the intent to work on it on my next day off, however, Gerritt had other plans. The gingerbread house had to be made immediately. After trying to talk him out of it, I gave up, thinking, "Why not?" There is no time like the present. One thing the children are really good at is enjoying the moment.


So only an hour later (which involved mixing & pasting the sticky mixture of egg white, powdered sugar & lemon juice), the gingerbread house was erected! Gerritt's happy face was so worth the mess, & perhaps we have another Christmas tradition in the making? I am still looking forward to my work meeting tomorrow, but I will feel just a little less guilty being away from home having spent some quality time with Gerritt tonight.