The House is Silent.

     Today is SL’s second day of daycare. You might be wondering why, considering I’m still off for the summer and have a few weeks left. But right now, as I sit and type this, my baby is being fed lunch by someone else. A delightful someone else, but someone else nonetheless. And so, the house is silent. I will explain.
     We learned last spring that our current babysitting arrangements were not going to be able to last this year. So we did what any American working family does. We panicked. I spent hours after school driving from daycare to daycare, each time leaving in tears at the thought of my sweet baby being one of many in a room of cribs. Sweet women led me down hallways and showed me curriculums and play areas, and children who were having fun or eating or sleeping or simply waiting for their parents. We talked about tuition payments and deposits and if they would put on sunscreen and naptimes. And I would smile and take my packets and walk to my car and cry. Because I am a working mother and that involves hard decisions. We priced out a nanny, which came to the equivalent of my paycheck and made us both laugh hysterically. That’s when the fervent praying began.  For peace with one of the hardest decisions I have faced. For the money to put her in a good childcare situation. And we waited.
    Our patience (as it often does) paid off when I received a text that the in-home daycare I had asked about in the spring had an opening.  We went to meet her and she was lovely and intuitive and Sarah Leighton smiled at her. We left and talked about it and budgeted (daycare, I have learned, is year round) and I cried more. And when I called to talk to her about the details (deposits, medical records, etc) it occurred to me that at some point in August, we were going to simply drop SL off one morning and not return until afternoon and do that every day from then on. That sounded ridiculous. This is a baby who gets upset when the cats don’t throw a ball back to her. So I asked how we could transition her. Which is when I learned it’s not so much about the child transitioning as it is the parent transitioning.
    So to make me feel better, she is now going part time and I circle the daycare center like a hawk ready to swoop in and grab her the second things aren’t going well. Except that never happened, because it turns out, Sarah Leighton LIKES it. She likes the other kids, and there’s this drawer of Little People figures that had her literally trying to leap out of my arms this morning as I pulled her closer. She NAPS there like a normal toddler, and eats lunch and has a snack and when I went to pick her up yesterday she smiled and reached for me but there was no flipping out. What I had imagined was out of a movie. I step into the dark hallway and from the light of the playroom a child runs to me (so desperate to get to me she has learned to walk). Again, never happened.
    What am I doing with the time besides circling? I’m going to the gym. I’m working on school things (never happens when she’s here). I’m cleaning our house (hope Matt is reading this) and I’m thinking about what can be given away, and making appointments. I’m setting up house for the next school year.   Because as every teacher knows, the school year doesn’t exactly give you as much free time to clean, right?  And I’m writing, working on things that I had put by the wayside because my days have been solely dedicated to keeping one beautiful baby happy.
    So our plan is to work up to full time. Because her caretaker is all about making sure that I’m doing okay, while reminding me that my sweet baby is doing just fine.  Is this really how growing up goes?