Sep
6
We started taking Riley to daycare when he was 3 months old, right when my maternity leave ended. I can still remember that first day, how brutal it was. I soon learned that it was better to hand him over to a kindly teacher or install him in a swing, but on that day I didn’t really know what to do and so I clumsily arranged him in one of the cribs and that’s where I left him, horrified by how small and alone he looked in there.
The staff hovered around me sympathetically, clucking and handing me tissues, as I sobbed my way out to the car.
It was awful, that first day, but it got better. The teachers were always very kind, the turnover was very low. Riley went from the infant room to the “woddler” room to the toddler room to the preschool room to the pre-K room. Dylan was a couple years behind, being held by some of the very same teachers who rocked Riley to sleep when he was little.
In five years, we’ve had few complaints about this care center. There was a brief time when they were understaffed where things weren’t being handled well—we were arriving to scenes of chaos and unchanged diapers for a week or two—but they resolved it quickly and we never saw anything like that again.
The place that has been such a positive part of our lives all this time is a KinderCare. I tell you this because I know when I was first looking into child care I thought of KinderCares as being crappy infant veal pens, probably staffed by dead-eyed ex-McDonald’s employees. Children would be milling around aimlessly, sobbing and filthy, while the franchise owner cackled and counted her thousand-dollar bills. Surely a private Montessori dayhome that offered immersive Mandarin and viola lessons would be the better choice. Only an uncaring parent would drop their precious child off at something called a “childcare facility“, right?
Well, I know every center is different, but our KinderCare has been absolutely wonderful. I could not have asked for a better team of loving, trustworthy people to teach, care for, and love our children over the years.
Last Friday was the boys’ final day at school, and while I’m so happy to be taking on a new routine, it was hard to say goodbye. One of Dylan’s teachers actually cried as we left, pulling him tight for one more hug.
A final look at Riley’s class:
And Dylan’s:
We made treat bags for Riley’s classmates, and thank you gifts for all their teachers.
Doors open, doors close. It’s all part of moving on to the next good thing.
Sep
3
Oh man, you guys. You have no idea how much I have been DYING to share this news with you. The last month has been crazy in terms of sudden new opportunities, budget-wrestling, life-balance agonizing, and everything else that goes with such a major life upheaval.
Here’s the deal: I’ll primarily be writing ongoing posts for The Stir along with some corporate work. I’ll be doing this from home while juggling kid-wrangling, because this is the last week of the boys’ daycare. Three days a week, our wonderful babysitter will be coming from 1-4 in the afternoon to watch Riley and Dylan, and I’ll scoot off to a coffee shop or wherever I can poach some Wi-Fi.
There are a lot of questions I don’t have answers to yet. I will have daily deadlines that I’ll need to meet, and I need to figure out how to do this without relying too much on Yo Gabba Gabba. I know I will slowly go crazy if I don’t have any adult interaction EVER, and the kids need socialization too, so I need a plan for getting us out of the house and interacting with actual live humans. I need a schedule, one that can be flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen problems but structured enough so that I don’t completely morph into this Oatmeal comic.
We decided to wait on starting Riley in kindergarten this year, so I had to think long and hard about whether it was the right thing to do to pull him from preschool. (His daycare is a care center and school combined.) And Dylan, for that matter—they have both done really well in their classes over the years. Under my new salary, I can’t afford to keep sending them there even part time.
Maybe I will find a less expensive preschool somewhere down the road (although as long as we live in this area it seems doubtful), but for now they’ll be home with me. The idea is that school—the homeschool variety—is going to be part of our new routine too. I don’t have much to say about that yet, but I’m hopeful that we can figure out the time management, and that the inevitable frustration is tempered by fun. I hope that it ends up being a great opportunity to connect with my kids and enjoy the last of their little-boyhood.
I have no doubts whatsoever that all of this is going to be really, really hard, in a lot of different ways. But I’ll tell you what, goddamn if the very best things aren’t always hard as hell.
Priorities have shifted all over the place, and I won’t be going back to school in the fall like I’d planned. Winter, probably. I will slowly but surely chase down that dream, no matter how long it takes.
I still dream of a career helping people reach their fitness goals. I want to get our house sold and move to Oregon. I want to write a book. I want to do a lot of things, and my road seems wider and more beckoning than ever before. This isn’t my forever, this is my new right now. And it is so, so much better than my yesterday.
For that and so much more, I want to say thank you. Thank you so very, very much for reading and being part of our lives. Without you I would not have this opportunity, and that is the absolute truth. The words aren’t enough, but I want you to know: I am so incredibly grateful.
Now, my dear friends. The comments are open for all kinds of advice, because I would love to hear any and everything you might want to share about surviving being at home full time, figuring out schedules, avoiding hermit-ness, keeping kids happy, not collapsing in a pile of your own personal filth, and so on. Next week a new chapter of our lives is starting, and I am so happy to be sharing it with you.
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