TheMommyBlog

Sunday, October 31, 2004 Family

I just got in touch with my inner crabass over at Philip’s. Normally he gives me a rough time for beng cranky and spiky, but for once he’s been out-cranking and out-spiking me. I’m just happy he feels comfortable venting in general and with me when we bump into one another on IM. I can tell him to fuck off, and he’ll just tell me to blow him. It’s very sweet.

What is NOT sweet at the moment is the knowledge that I will be sending my babies off to all-day child care tomorrow morning for the first time in their lives.

Gil starts his new job, and there is much rejoicing in our home, but it also means that Dylan must switch from three afternoons a week in pre-K to five full days and Daphne will go from hanging out with Gil all day to five full days of preschool. Dylan and Daphne will be in the same private school at least, and will receive excellent care and instruction for the low, low price of nine hundred and change a month. Each.

Every time I start to feel sick at the thought, I remember that Daphne has been dry and wearing big girl undies for something like five days now with very few accidents. That has to be a record—she was wearing diapers when I left for Boston, and as of today, she is apparently out of them forever. Gil is the king of short-term training. Either that, or he REALLY wants to start working again.

I will have to make a few changes about my days as well. I will have a hard stop at pickup time. I will not be able to come in early. I will be ready to drop everything and fetch my little angels if they need me during the day. I will drop in now and then when I feel anxious and think they might like a surprise hug and kiss.

I was so happy when it became possible for the children to have a parent at home. Logan went to day care at six months when Gil and I both worked and stayed there until he was two and Dylan was born. I had planned to take my six months of maternity leave and then enroll Dylan as well, but then he went into heart failure and became catastrophically ill eight days after I brought him home from the hospital. With the diagnosis of viral myocarditis came the realization that we would have to keep him out of contact with other children and with the world at large until he was strong enough to withstand the exposure to everyday germy threats. (Here’s a photo of the first time they let me hold him when he came off the respirator.)

So, we hired a nanny. And three months later I became pregnant with Daphne. Ay caramba. And then Gil’s job went bye-bye in the tech downturn when I was barely a month away from giving birth to our third child. And we owed a fortune on the house and to creditors. I was one cranky-ass spikemonster.

We rearranged our obligations, refinanced the house (several times) and I lobbied heavily for more pay. By the time I had to go back to work ten weeks after my c-section, we’d figured out how to make it work. Apply for more credit! (Kidding.)

That was three years ago. And now we have reached a new phase of our family’s life. Fortunately we are very good salespeople and the children are excited about the change. Dylan gets to spend more time drawing and Daphne finally gets to go to “pretty K.” Logan, well, in his inexplicable way Logan is fired up for after school care. I have no idea why, but he thinks it is the height of cool and I’m not about to mess with that notion.

It will take me a while to stop fretting about my babies and worrying that they will twig to the downside at around half-past ten on the first day and ask to go home. I worry that they will hear for the first time, “Mommy is gone, Daddy is gone, and they won’t be able to come for you for six more hours.” One or the other of us has always been within a few minutes’ drive.

If I start to get sad at half-past ten in the morning, who will come for me?