My son Sam entered Kindergarten last August, and I've been seeking gainful (that is, paying) employment since then. Last fall, I spent a couple of months going to a couple hundred grocery stores in Montgomery County quantifying the availability and provenance of organic produce therein. That's just a high-falutin' way of saying I wrote down what organic produce each store sold and where said produce was grown.

Easy work. Decent money. But since that gig ended in the middle of December, times have been dry with nary a nibble at my proffered resume. Until the end of February.

That last full week of the second month, I got two interviews on one day at offices within a block of each other in downtown D.C. One was for a temporary position at a law firm doing paralegal-ish work for less than paralegal pay. The other was for a part-time admin assistant at an environmental NGO (not one you've heard of, I'm sure). I got the law firm gig and didn't get the environmental job. Then I got even more bites. I have a phone interview for yet another job tomorrow.

So when they say that the job market is picking up, my survey sample of one is happy to confirm it.

Anyway, the law firm gig isn't particularly interesting, but it pays. And after two weeks of full-time work, I now go in only during the hours when my boys are in school. A perfect situation: I make money and still get home to pick up the guys at the bus stop and make dinner.

Of course, I'm not able to do all the housekeeping things I used to do. Vacuuming happens less often and more quickly. The quality of work just isn't there.

My experiment of shutting down the dishwasher is also running into problems. Our electric bills have plunged in the two months since I went to handwashing. But now that I'm working downtown, the dishes stack up like crazy. I'm tempted to just toss them in the machine and be done with it. Except that I'm not really making that much money, and the $30-$40 that we save each month from doing dishes by hand isn't chump change. More and more, though, I can understand the impulse to use time-saving devices. As of now, I've resisted temptation.

Don't even talk to me about laundry. Our dirty clothes sit around until one or the other of my boys has some sort of sartorial crisis. A regular schedule? Not happening.

The biggest problem, though, is grocery shopping. I have a circuit of about seven stores that I like to visit at least once a month. When I shopped during the day, parking was never a problem and traffic was fine. I know not to shop on the weekend, but that leaves after school or evenings. My boys will begrudge one shopping trip a week--as long as we stop off at the library as well. Otherwise, well, I'm heading out at eight or nine o'clock. Fun.

I know plenty of other folks deal with this all the time. I'm not complaining. It's just a new way of life. And for those who are asking "What's your wife doing about all this?," she's kicking in. She came home early to pick up the guys during my two full-time weeks, and she's helped out with more of the housework. But we're still working out the details of this new system, which is only to be expected.

The folks at the law firm are pretty happy with my work. They want me to go back to full-time hours on a more permanent basis. I told them that they had to pay me enough to cover afternoon child care and a bit extra. I don't want to spend fifteen extra hours a week in the office, only to give back all the money I make (and I mean all of it) for child care. I might as well spend that money on myself, as it were.

So we'll see. Right now I'm a part-time working stiff. If the right job comes along, I'll be stiffer. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Jon Worley likes lawyers. Especially ones that let him wear tennis shoes in the office.