To erase all messages press erase again. Beep. Messages erased.

I think the established wisdom about SAHM's (stay-at-home-moms) is that they need a bit of alone time to recoup their grace and splendour (aka sanity). Sharing misery or exhaustion I have often been urged to take a mommy-time-out at the spa or coffee-shop or restaurant or in the basement with the door shut. It is supposed to replenish us with love for our children and husbands and cooking and all that good stuff.

Since having the nanny two mornings a week and getting a bit more sleep in the past few weeks I have to say that the opposite has been true. After a few hours away from the kids I find myself reluctant to return to being a SAHM. I know we are not supposed to say this because it might tempt a malevolent deity to teach us a lesson, but I have been remembering how nice it was when Josh and I did not have kids and it was all quiet and there was room for self expression and self determination and many other phrases with "self" at the front. I miss it! I don't want a few stolen hours, or a job that drives all the tasks of a day into less time so I work two shifts. I just want privacy.

Some of you will be mentally rephrasing that to "personal space" but that is not it. I don't just want personal space. I want P-R-I-V-A-C-Y. I would like my desk to be private so that Frost and Wren do not smash my laptop and drop the bills all over. I want my breakfast to be private so I don't have to sit in squished avocado while I spoon dripping yoghurt into someone's mouth and pour milk into ovaltine from someone else and throw out the newspaper without reading it. I want our bedroom to be private so we can have sex if and when we want to - ok, after the kids are in bed. Unfortunately, half of them are in our bed still. The larger half of the children (by mass).

Of course, I had these desires before the respite nanny but I had forgotten how it felt to really kick back and drink a whole latte and then sit a while with an empty cup. That is the sweet time. The excess of solitude. The time when the ongoing assault of the child-noise is just soothed away. Who needs a massage when you have a nanny.

Of course, my moment of privacy as a blog author has come to an end abruptly as Wren cannot fathom how to play my voicemail since he has deleted it all already. He wants the voices to come out again. Sorry.

It is an appropriate ending to this observation.