This week, I am officially unemployed. Woo-hoo! I had my last day at the ballet on Friday, and I don't start my contract gig at Pottery Barn Kids until next Tuesday. I'm spending this week at the beach, reading cheezy paperbacks and surfing.

Or not. 

This doesn't exactly feel like your standard week off. For starters, it's hotter than an inferno out there, pretty much too hot to even want to take Elaine for walks, since her little flushed cheeks let me know when the temperature has exceeded her comfort level. It was 95 today. Also, my sister had her baby last night! She was supposed to have her C-section tomorrow morning, but last night the persistence of her contractions prompted her doctor to call off the waiting and just go for it. Amelia Helen Challenger was born around 8:30, at 20 inches and 7 pounds, even. Let me seize this opportunity to point out that Elaine was also 20 inches. However, she had all that beautiful thick dark hair, which was clearly very heavy, because she weighed in at 8 pounds 9 ounces. Hem. Anyway so Elaine and I are doing lots of running back and forth to the hospital, so Elaine can start showing Amelia the ropes of Extreme Cuteness. (If there is enough public interest, we are considering scheduling a seminar on this topic, led by Elaine.) Finally, B's parents are arriving on Thursday. Which means I have to figure out where to hide the clutter in our teeny, closet-less, office-less house. My current options are: figure out ways to stick it to the ceiling, or a bonfire. 

This week also marks the end of an era, namely, The Era in Which Nana Was One of Elaine's Full-Time Staff Members. My sister generously offered her spare bedroom as lodging for Mom, since our 2 bedrooms (the second of which is occupied by Elaine and does not have a closet) are not quite as accommodating to a long-term guest, and my mom spent the summer being our nanny. Elaine does not yet know how lucky she is to have been the nominal beneficiary of this era, but Brandon and I do. I would call Mom twice a day from my desk to check in and see what the girls were up to. Despite the fact that Elaine's daily activities could probably be summarized in three or four sentences ("She napped, and then woke up and requested a clean diaper. She drank a buttload of milk. Then she played/went for a walk/bounced on my lap, and spit up all over me. I put her back down for another nap."), Mom was always so excited to tell me the details of every single thing Elaine had done -- not just to please me, but because she was genuinely delighted and awed by each and every accomplishment. And in case there is any doubt as to how expansive a definition we're assigning to "accomplishment," just plain looking cute was most definitely well within the bounds. Mom could elaborate on every detail of Elaine's cuteness -- her eyelashes, what her feet were doing, her body language, where exactly the cuteness had taken place -- for 10 minutes or more. There is no doubt in my mind that as a result of my mother's willingness to sacrifice her days on the Michigan beach this summer to come care for my daughter, Elaine's first six months of life were as loving and full of goofey-eyed adoration, silly songs, kisses, and cuddles as they possibly could be. 

I called Elaine the nominal beneficiary because clearly Brandon and I benefited indescribably from this arrangement as well. Not only did we get free childcare that was of the highest caliber we could possibly have hoped for, we got a bunch of free dinners out of it. It was like we had a wife. There were many nights we would come home and find our daughter clean and smiling, waiting for us (often on her Nana's lap on the front porch), dinner ready or nearly so, and the occasional totally above-and-beyond chore completed, such as folded laundry or a swept bathroom floor. While Brandon and I used the time before putting Elaine down for the night to bathe her and play with her, Mom would fill us in on any additional details about the things they'd done together during the day, or sometimes just to marvel over the phenomenally big poop Elaine had produced. After Elaine was asleep, we'd sit down to dinner, and most nights the three of us would work together on a crossword from Brandon's giant book of 1,001 New York Times puzzles. By this time Mom was usually so worn out by our baby's magnificence that you'd say "A four-letter word that starts with 'c' and means 'rude'," and she would offer, "Insolent?" causing Brandon and I to collapse in giggles.

True enough, Elaine wil never have a concrete memory of this precious bonding time she has had with her Nana, but that's not the point. All of us -- Nana included -- are better for it, and whether she knows it or not, Elaine will always bear a permanent branding of that environment of love and devotion in her critical first months of life. I'm sure Brandon and I will start messing her up sooner or later, but for now, I have absolute confidence and security in her cultivation. And it helped make my return to work at least a partially happy experience. I wish we could find a way to have Mom stay. But that would only be possible if we can stick her to the ceiling.