I am feeling a mixture of incredible happiness and deep anxiety because tomorrow Sam's new nanny will start with us, five days a week.
These are emotions that will be familiar to many working mothers. Excitement at the prospect of returning to your job, and torment at the thought of leaving your precious baby in the care of another woman, whether it's a nanny, childminder or nursery nurse.
Challenging role: Esther Walker, pictured with her daughter Kitty, hasn't enjoyed being a stay-at-home mother
Except, in my case I'm not starting, or even going back to, a demanding full-time role.
While it's true that I'm hoping getting a nanny will help kick-start my writing career
after maternity leave, the plain truth is that I'm getting a nanny because I just don't want to look after a baby all day any more.
I'm feeling joy and relief at the prospect of no longer being a full-time mum, but torment for the very same reason. After all, what kind of mother can I be if I don't want to be with my children as much as possible?
I know I'm lucky. While one in three in women would stay at home looking after their children if they could afford to, for many, returning to work is absolutely necessary to pay the bills.
But my husband Giles earns enough as a writer so I don't have to work. It enables me to be with Sam and his three-year-old sister Kitty all the time, if I want to. But I don't.
Many mothers may be shocked by my confession. Admitting that you hate being a full-time child carer - and that you're getting a nanny - is akin to shouting from the rooftops that you are, in some way, a bad mother.
When you are on your own most of the day, most of the week, it's miserable - for you and, I think, for the child
Of course I love my children dearly. But my experience of full-time childcare has been awful: long, lonely days scrabbling around thinking up new ways to pass the time.
I'm utterly sick of all the wiping - of little noses, bottoms and faces, of kitchen surfaces and cafe table tops and of the constant bending over doing and undoing buggy buckles and car-seat straps.
That I feel this way came as a surprise. My mother, Annie, didn't work and the only help she had with my three sisters and me was someone to iron my father's shirts once a week.
So in the back of my mind (although I would always deny I was prejudiced against people who hired nannies), I always thought that mothers ought to want do the majority of the childcare themselves, just as my mother did.
And I must confess that before I had Kitty in 2011, I thought it would be easy. The naivety of it makes me laugh, now.
I thought I would make other mummy friends in my area and that we would hang out in each other's sunny kitchens, or at playgroups while our babies played.
I had no problem with the prospect of working less - I didn't feel that I would lose my identity. In fact I was looking forward to singing nursery rhymes and getting messy with fingerpaints.
But the reality was shockingly different. Sure, I met other mothers. I even waged a campaign to make new friends, taking down numbers and starting conversations.
Calling in reinforcements: As much as she loves
her two children Sam and Kitty, Esther is fed up of spending all of her
time caring for them
It didn't come naturally: I'm simply not one of life's socialisers. But I persevered and invited almost perfect strangers round for coffee.
But there was always a problem: they turned out to live a car ride away, or their kids were about to go to nursery, or they promptly went back to work.
Or, worse, we just clearly weren't going to get on: one woman was so shocked that I wasn't still breastfeeding Kitty (who was four months old) that she didn't even finish her coffee and cake before running out of the door.
I confess that after a while I just stopped trying and consigned myself to dealing with the business of childcare on my own. When you have company, childcare is delightful. Except during the very fussy toddler stages, I find that children mostly like being with other children - and when you have other people to chat to and your child has new toys to look at, the hours swing by.
I'm utterly sick of all the wiping - of
little noses, bottoms and faces, of kitchen surfaces and cafe table tops
and of the constant bending over doing and undoing buggy buckles and
car-seat straps
Whenever I managed to get together
with another mother and we were, indeed, chatting in a sunny kitchen
while our babies batted some toys around on the floor, there was nowhere
I'd rather have been - not working or shopping or reading a book or
anything. But that was a rare occasion.When you are on your own most of the day, most of the week, it's miserable - for you and, I think, for the child.
And when the rain's constantly lashing down, it can be pretty unbearable. I remember taking Kitty to the playground one freezing cold day and thinking: 'Where is everyone?' and realising that they were at each other's houses - all except us. It wasn't supposed to be like that! It was never supposed to be just me and the baby, staring at each other, both thinking 'Well, this is dull.'
Sitting in cafes, whiling away half an hour over a coffee and a babyccino - literally just wasting time - before we could go home for lunch: that was never the plan.
Not what she expected: When she was pregnant,
Esther thought she would love being at home with her children and making
new friends
Having a good social life based around your children, it must make all the drudgy aspects of full-time childcare worth it: struggling to manoeuvre a buggy, getting a wind-blasted complexion from being out in all weathers, cooking and clearing up what feels like eight meals a day, placating a teething baby, dealing with spills and tantrums and unexpected nappy changes.
But when you're isolated and friendless, childcare can feel like one long chore. I grew to dread the days when I was in sole charge. And that, in turn, made me feel sad.
My children are not horrible: they are demanding, yes, but straightforward and it's easy to have fun with them. So what was it about spending the day alone with them that I dreaded so much?
I purposefully had two children (with no plans for more), close in age, so that I could take care of them myself during their early years and then kick back and deservedly enjoy my free mornings once my son was at nursery.
But, after he was born, the thought of having to go through the same friendless slog again made my shoulders sag.
It just isn't fair on Sam, who is a cheerful boy; he enjoys getting out and about and deserves to be with someone who wants to be there with him.
So in the New Year, I admitted defeat. After three years of motherhood I hadn't made a single 'mum' friend and there was no point pretending that things were going to change now.
I hired Maggie, a delightful Romanian girl who looks after Sam from the morning until mid-afternoon. She has a ton of nanny friends and they have a ball together.
Sam laughs and claps his hands when she arrives in the morning and if Maggie doesn't adore Sam back then she's a brilliant actress. Having this time to myself has changed my life.
Is it bedtime yet? Esther felt both she and her
daughter were bored of one another after spending so much time together
(posed by models)
Though I often don't earn a penny and am sometimes left in the red after a bad week, the chance to build up my career means that, once my children are at school and there is no nanny to pay, my income might even come in useful.
The house is more organised now I have time to tackle horrifying areas of clutter and we even occasionally have different things for dinner because I can look up new recipes.
What's more, when I've had a bumper month of freelance work, I can sneak off for a poke around Topshop. I even met a friend for a pedicure last month and we had an uninterrupted chat. It was bliss.
I haven't handed over my children completely - I am still in sole charge between 1pm and bedtime. And though sometimes bedtime can't come fast enough, knowing I have every morning to myself means I can relax and enjoy the afternoon with my kids.
So when Maggie arrives at 9am I still greet her with a mixture of happiness and sadness - happiness because my life is so much easier now and sadness because I feel like I have failed my children.
But Sam doesn't seem to care two hoots who's in charge, as long as they smile a lot and give him his lunch on time. And, in the end, he's the one that matters.
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