July 4, 2008

Welcome to the Club

For three days this week, I brought my daughter to work. Not really a good thing, if you're cramped in a small space as I am. And definitely not a good thing if you have a snooty kid as I do.

But because papers were piling up and the to-do list just had to be dealt with, I had no choice. And so, armed with a humongous bag crammed with crayons, books and stuff supposedly meant to keep boredom at bay--and with "this, too, shall pass" as my mantra of the week--off we went to city hall.

The moment I set foot in the office, I knew that I had made the transition. Back in Eastgate and in my early days in city hall, I was the playmate: entertainer to kids whose moms had no choice but to bring them along. A marriage contract and a birth certificate later, I had joined the sisterhood of child-toting working moms whose concerns are more along the lines of caregivers, preschools and child-friendly TV.

The walk up to my corner--which, on "normal" days--takes a minute or so, stretched on and on. The moms gave me knowing, welcome-to-the-club smiles, the singles volunteered to do playmate duty. And when the referrals took a little longer to finish, there were the reassuring been-there-done-that taps on the shoulder.

And what of the little girl? She was surprisingly well behaved, with no hint of that fiery temper. She just settled into a quiet corner and finished an entire drawing book. She gave a start when a midget came in and I had to tell her to stop staring. Otherwise, things went pretty well.

Ahh, if I had known that motherhood would be a ready excuse for not clocking in on time, for not getting the job done fast and for playing on the job, I would have done it a long time ago.

2 comments:

Bicol Scribe said...

Welcome to the club, sistah! San saday pa si Kevin, he even had the gal to ask one of my officemates. "Tita, busy si mommy, can you wash my puwet?"

ScroochChronicles said...

Yup..welcome to the club. This, I promise, will be the first of many. I once brought Gaby with me to a coffee/meeting with my Canadian business partner and for some reason, they hit it off. Now that partner regularly sends her email with pictures of Canada during winter :D