Single Dad
13 months ago my life had fallen apart. My wife, Liz had left me and Blake, our two year old son. She was having an affair with her boss. She was pregnant with his kid, and she was in love. She handed me divorce papers that more or less gave me almost all of our possessions, and left. She just wanted to be out of my hair.
I made enough money to take care of my son and I. Blake was my whole world now but I still had work piling up. Fortunately my boss was a divorcee herself and she was very understanding and allowed me to work from home for a time. This made things somewhat less chaotic but still troublesome. It's hard to work all day and take care of a toddler. We didn't have daycare arrangements and all the nearby centers were closed to new enrolees at the moment. I needed some help.
Who knows what would have happened if not for Amber. My life would have been a lot more difficult for sure. I was at a cookout with a friend and had to explain what had happened with me and Liz. This brought a lot of sympathetic ears, as I watched Blake play with some of the other kids my friends had. My friend informed me that his oldest daughter Amber was looking for some gap year work and she was good with kids and maybe I could hire her to be a nanny. "Jack she's over there, why don't you go ask her about it?"
I said I'd give it a try, it felt like I had nothing to lose at that point because I didn't see how things could keep going as they were. Blake needed someone to take care of him full time and I needed to be able to catch up with work.
She came over and at first things were a little tentative. The first week there was a lot of checking in with me and establishing habits and routines for Blake. Making sure things were just right. She was constantly asking me about what I wanted for him. "What does he eat," "When does he normally take a nap." I loved how detail oriented she was being but it was almost as many interruptions as before.
This settled down into a routine. Once Amber learned what to do she was able to work pretty much without my input. We'd see each other for lunch and dinner and for most of the day I could focus on work. I got a lot more productive, as working from home is sort of living at work, and with someone to make sure everything was fine with Blake I was making a lot of improvements to my work. Amber became like part of the family, and as Blake got more and more comfortable with her things got even better.