I didn’t bring it up the next morning. Or the morning after that.
But the sentence played on repeat in my head for days.
A week later I slid into the kitchen while he was eating cereal and said, as casually as if I were asking about the weather,
“I’ve been thinking… I’m ready to go back to work. The kids are three now. We should probably start looking for a babysitter.”
His spoon froze halfway to his mouth. His whole face lit up like I’d just handed him a winning lottery ticket.
“Seriously? That’s great!”
I smiled over my coffee. “We’ll need someone responsible, experienced… and good-looking, right? You were pretty specific about aesthetics.”
He nearly choked on his cereal, then recovered fast, eyes gleaming.
“Leave it to me. I know exactly what we need.”
For the next several days he was on babysitting sites every free second, sending me profiles of twenty-something yoga teachers and “holistic-play specialists” whose photos looked like they belonged on magazine covers. Every message ended with a winking emoji.
