Opportunity knocks

I’ve been offered an opportunity at work.  An opportunity to be the acting Senior Manager for my unit until I go on parental leave.  So, a short run (easy peasy!) except it includes the Budget madness (this government usually has their Budget before the end of March).

I’ve been on record saying I’d never want to be a manager here, especially of this unit.  I’ve been on record saying the hours that some people in our Branch work are insane.  I say these things out loud, and often, but it doesn’t seem to be heard — because now I’m offered this opportunity to be acting senior manager and work crazy hours, especially over Budget.

I was offered a development opportunity once before, to participate in the LEADS program (Leadership Education and Development School) with the Ministry.  I accepted that opportunity, not that I always dreamed of being in LEADS but more because I don’t have any idea where I would go from here jobwise.  So LEADS could potentially open more doors for me.

One of our LEADS team members quit the program a few moths ago.  Oh how jealous was I?!! I can’t say I’m enjoying LEADS and even though our team gets excellent feedback, I don’t even see that we’ve been doing a good job.  I guess it’s all relative.

So here’s another opportunity (and I’m not even done LEADS yet – which finishes this spring).  But another Senior Manager in this Branch will be retiring soon, and she handles issues that used to be my bread and butter.  So this current opportunity would give me an idea of whether I would want to apply for the permanent spot that, presumably, would become available after the other Senior Manager retires.  It would also avoid the situation of me working for someone junior to me – at least for a little while.  And somehow it just seems wrong to turn down an opportunity when it’s offered.

My sister on the other hand sees it differently:

“Do you get paid more?”  Well, yes, but I’d have to work more hours, so on an hourly basis probably not.

“Can you say no?”

Who’s Your Daddy?

No one asks us about the Peanut’s donor except when wondering what colour his hair or eyes will end up being, or if he’ll be tall or left-handed etc.  And even then, we don’t get asked as much as we volunteer the information.  But now and again we get asked, and it’s almost always “What colour are the Dad’s eyes?” or “How tall is the father?”

The first time it happened was during lunch with a good friend of ours.  She’s a lesbian, a feminist,  knows all about the process we took – and when she asked something like “what colour are the Dad’s eyes?” I had the hardest time figuring out what she was asking.  I don’t know why I had to work it through — it was obvious what she was asking.  After a pause, I replied “the donor’s eyes are hazel”, and she called him the donor after that.

Visiting S’s family, I heard the same type of question, but with “father” instead of “dad”.  It still felt wrong to me to hear the donor referrred to as the father.  If I was male, I don’t think anyone would have asked me about the donor by calling him the  ”dad” or the “father”, at least not without adding “biological” in front of it.

And I guess that’s the crux of it.  Right now, at least, I feel like I’m the Peanut’s father – more in the sense of being the parent who isn’t his mother.  I’m not sure why “mother” doesn’t resonate with me.   Maybe it’s because he already has an excellent mother and I’m stuck on this binary mother/father societal programming thing.  Maybe it’s because when I played house as a child I always wanted to be the father (seriously, who wouldn’t?).  Maybe because, by being at work while S is on leave, I’m playing the “father” if this were a game of house.  I don’t know.

So we’ll see how I feel about the title “mother” when I begin my parental leave and S goes to work.  Will I feel more like a mother then, when I’m alone with the Peanut all day?

The nice thing, though, is how natural it is for everyone to accept me as his mother and therefore as his full parent.

Bad start to a new year

One of our cats died, right before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

So now we’ve just the one cat left.  I wonder if she’ll feel lonely without being chased around the house all the time.

Update Jan 11:  Oh, she’s lonely alright. Before Baco died, we noticed that she slept a lot.  She was no longer the pesty little munchkin she used to be.  We figured it was because she was getting older.  Now we figure it was because she was getting plenty of exercise chasing (and being chased by) Baco all night long.  Now that he’s gone, she’s become very needy.  Poor thing.  I guess we need to find her a companion.  A companion with attitude.