An Improvement?

Today after school:

Ingrid, cheerfully: [Name of Wyoming Town] didn't hit me on the head today.

Me: Well, that's good. It sounds like he made a better choice today, (blah blah blah about hitting and how it hurts, etc. etc.)

Ingrid, interrupting, still cheerfully: Today he poked me in the eye.


Other than that, she seems to have had a fine second day. Her teacher commented on her sense of humor, saying she giggled all day long. She made a fabulous piece of art out of large amounts of glue and glitter.

Hello, Backpack

Ingrid had her last day at the old day care Friday (“It’s closed now,” she said, driving home that evening. “Closed like a library.”) We gave each of the three teachers plus the director a photo of her in a handmade frame (She decorated each with meticulous, evenly spaced dashes, front and back.) We said goodbye, and it was sad and a relief to have the ending over with.

Today she was to have started at the small in-home day care. But about ten days ago, I got the nagging feeling that we’d made the wrong decision. Ingrid seemed, suddenly, so old and so ready for “school”, and the uncertainties around a one-woman day care business suddenly seemed huge.

As set as I’d been—for weeks—on the in-home day care, I couldn’t shake the feeling that what she needs now is something more structured and more official than even a super experienced and educated caregiver can do in her home. The march-like song from the “School” Signing Time video stomped through my head all day: “Time to pay attention, time to pay atten-CHUN!” And my nagging, nagging gut kept demanding atten-CHUN right along with it. A, on the phone from Germany, admitted to the same doubts.

I obsessed about this for several days straight, to the point where in order to sleep I had to envision myself throwing a big clay pot, putting all of my day care thoughts inside it, and letting it float away on the blue ocean.

And then we started to look at the other options again.

We looked briefly into an extremely dogmatic Waldorf place (lovely, but the more single-minded and unfortunately more vocal of the two proprietors had a creepy gleam in her eye that brought me back to my days hanging out with fundamentalist Christian missionaries in the Himalayas. She said something about “the opportunity to meet like-minded parents” and I almost ran screaming from the soothingly arranged, newly low-VOC-painted room.)

And then we found out there was still room at the co-op day care center that I’ve loved for years (Ingrid had been on the waiting list to get into the younger kids’ room for ages) and where her good buddy H (of the fingernail polish) is going now. We signed her up, and today was her first day.

I feel lousy—completely lousy—about backing out on the original plan with the in-home woman. I never would have done this before having kids: Backing out! Of a Plan! A plan that I myself had decided on and agreed to. Backing out because of no particular concrete change other than that my gut was telling me it was the thing to do. But I did—as gracefully (not very) as I could—and today was Ingrid's first day at "school".

And I feel great about what we’re doing, about this new day care that my suddenly super grown up daughter calls school. I think it’s a great little community. There is so much that I know she’ll love: a garden, pet hermit crabs, a play kitchen. Her buddy H is an outgoing kid who draws everyone out—including even Ingrid at her most shy. And her teachers are kind, smart women who seem to love their jobs and love the kids.

Ingrid came home today exhausted but full of stories (“We made pizza for snack. With sauce and cheese. And VEGETABLES!”) and full of imaginary games about cousins (she has no real ones) and a song about speckled frogs. Apparently some little shit child who shares a name with a Wyoming town hit her over the head this afternoon, but I am pleased with how the teacher handled both the hitter and Ingrid’s (distressed, very upset) response, and for now I am going to believe that this won’t be a regular occurrence. She seems to have recovered fine.

As much as I’m trying to fight it, it’s starting to feel like fall: Cool weather, rain, the sad, sad closing of the park wading pools (closed like libraries, I guess), and a girl—after all her parents' strange and convoluted decision making finally sorted itself out—starting school.

Bad dreams, day care, and more than you wanted to know about my right nipple.

I dreamed I was going to do some sort of reading of my poems. I arrived with a stack of poems in a big box that looked like our dining room table turned upside down, and everyone at the reading treated me like some kind of crazed pariah. "That is the filthiest dining room table I've ever seen," I heard people gossiping to one another. "And are we really supposed to listen to those poems after she has let them touch her dirty, dirty clothes? Doesn't she ever do laundry?"

Sheesh. You'd think my subconscious could give me a break once in a while.

~~~

I mentioned that Ingrid's fantastic and long searched for day care is most likely closing at the end of the summer. We have two options in front of us:

1. Cooperatively run day care center nearby but slightly off my path to work. Fourteen kids in her classroom, two teachers. Rave reviews from many, many families. Four hours of "work" required per month. Advantages: Pretty close to guaranteed reliability and stability (it's been there 30 years). Worries: Is it going to freak Ingrid out to be in a classroom with 14 kids?

2. Small (5 kids, max) in-home day care run by a woman I sort of know through our early childhood classes. She has an early childhood ed. background and taught preschool for eight years. I know some of the kids who go there, and they are on the quieter, more mellow side. She has a long list of stellar references. It's two blocks from where I work. Advantages: Many. I am much more confident that Ingrid will be comfortable in this setting. Worries: She plans to be doing this for the next five years, but with a one-woman show like this I know anything could come up and then we'd have to put Ingrid through another transition. Also, if she or either of her two kids is sick, there's no backup and we're out of luck for that day (though she doesn't charge for sick days she takes).

Thoughts?

~~~

Iris is cutting her top front teeth and as a result she has been nursing funny for the past week or so. By "funny" I mean "clench, clench, clench, chomp, chomp chomp." For a while this was only moderately painful, but during one of last night's nursing sessions it started to be really, really painful, and then this morning I noticed there is an actual open sore on my nipple. Which I guess would explain why it has been feeling like she's chewing my nipple off: She is.

I am so taken with the pain and grossness of this that it's all I can do to keep from telling everyone about it: "I have an open sore! On my nipple! My baby has been chewing my nipple off! Feel sorry for me and be impressed with my motherly dedication!"

More worrisome is that right now it genuinely hurts too much to nurse. And this, of course, is the boob that makes literally 90% of the milk. So poor Iris is cranky, and I'm worried my whole supply is going to dry up. I am pumping on the wounded side (which hurts a lot, but much less than nursing), but not getting much milk, and nursing her only on the uninjured but wimpy side. Other than Lansinoh and Ibuprofen, what else should I be doing? At this point I wish someone would just give me a hit of (insert name of nursing-safe extreme pain reliever here) so I could let her nurse on the milky side again.

Depleted

I've gotten out of the habit of writing, and been out of energy for it. A was away for over two weeks, and during that time I gradually wore down my reserves: up many times a night with a teething Iris, plus awake in the 5 o'clock hour every morning. This left me not exactly tired, but with the sense of having basically nothing left for anything but getting through each day. That sense is lingering, actually, and it takes every bit of optimism I can muster to believe that some day I will like this again and will feel I'm doing something useful rather than just keep us all safely standing in one place.

My parents were here for about a week of A's absence, and they are rock stars. My dad built three giant raised garden beds. My mom helped with every step of the daily grind, from the sublime (the girls giggling together about their very own game of peek-a-boo) to the horrid (awful hours with Ingrid that left me, during nap time, weeping and grousing, "Why did no one tell me having kids would be like this?")

I contracted pink eye. It wasn't too uncomfortable, and it felt appropriate to look red-eyed and gooey, like I finally looked as exhausted as I felt.

A is back; we have weathered the usual reentry shock. We've figured out that our mornings suck when I sleep in, and that it goes more smoothly when we are all up early and groggy together and have a chance to adjust to the day at once rather than me stumbling down the stairs and getting slammed with tantruming wide awake girls desperate for mama time.

Oh, and we found out that Ingrid's day care is most likely closing in the fall. The director is selling her house (where the day care is hosted) and moving away, for personal reasons. This after I told the terrific preschool to give our spot to someone on the waiting list because we are oh so happy with what we have. There is still some ghost of a chance that the families and teachers will be able to pull something together to keep it going at a different location, but over all it is a pretty sucky development.

I planted the garden with tomatoes (weirdly leggy, most of them), basil, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, winter squash, peppers, beets, radishes, and a ton of herbs. It's been raining and raining and warm but without much sun, and the idea that things will bloom and produce things we can eat seems rather theoretical. The allium is blooming, though, which is lovely.

I am working on a few posts for this week. More soon.

More on the Day Care, Plus Other Stuff

About four blocks from our house is a dingy, stucco box of a house with a single, filthy, two-square-foot window. Hanging on the side of that house is a vinyl banner that reads, Child Care Openings. I believe that in small print under that it says We abuse and neglect your children, almost for free! When Emmie asked me the other day whether that was the Chaotic Bilingual Day Care, it occurred to me that I had not been representing the place totally fairly.

Chaotic Bilingual Day Care is clean. It is well lighted. It is run by an impeccable, articulate woman whom I still totally trust. I've met several families whose kids go there, and to a person they are likable, normal-seeming, smart-seeming adults whose kids are not jerks. It is categorically a bad fit for Ingrid, and I saw some stuff there that I didn't like, period, but I would still recommend it. At least, I'd recommend that people looking for day care in the area spend some time there and check it out. Despite the worst things I listed about it, my pulling Ingrid out of there is still mostly a gut thing. There is not anything glaringly, objectively wrong about the place. Even the worst things I witnessed there were sort of ambiguous.

Anyway, I don't know if you were reading along thinking What on earth made caro even think of sending her child into that hell hole? but in case you were, I hope that clears it up.

I called the director of Crunchier Than Thou last week to chat about our visit, and she listened to my concerns about Ingrid being ready for such a setting at all. Then she suggested that, if we decide this is the right place, one of their part-time teachers come to spend some time with Ingrid here at home a few times, in order to make the transition to her starting there more gradual. Stunning, isn't it? The out of the box thinking? The sense of partnership? The genuine sensitivity to the individual child's needs?

I was still looking into a couple of other leads at that point, so I told her I'd call her in a few days. But what else could I possibly want or hope for? I'm going to get in touch with her today and tell her we want to give it a try.

Also this week, we visited a fabulous pre-school co-op that made me all weepy about the fact we probably won't logistically be able to do traditional pre-school. Then I thought about how far away next September is and decided to sign her up and really work on arranging our lives so that it can work by then. If not, we just eat the $50 registration fee.

Ingrid has a stomach bug that made her puke all night Thursday. I got some version of it for several hours Friday. So far Iris and A are safe. I am on a "break" at the coffee shop, the kind that feels more like a time-out because rather than planning a take-care-of-me outing I let myself get cranky enough that A basically sent me away for a couple of hours. I guess I'll take what I can get.

I am so relieved to have moved forward with the day care decision. It must be a primal thing: not knowing who will take care of my kids = not sleeping. Each time Iris woke up to nurse, I'd find my mind scrolling through various day care possibilities and impossibilities, before I'd even realized I was thinking about the subject. I still think about it a lot, but I feel much calmer knowing this good option is taking shape.

The Plot Thickens—and Thins

At Crunchier Than Thou Home Day Care, I recognized a kid that Ingrid and I were in an Early Childhood class with a year ago, so naturally that afternoon I called her mom to ask how they liked the place.

The news was not entirely positive. They feel the kids are safe and happy. But there apparently has been a lot of staff turnover. The recently-hired teacher is the third person who’s held that position since June. (One person apparently left for “personal” reasons, but still.) The reasons for the turnover (as this mom views them, anyway) are boring and don’t seem to have direct bearing on the quality of care. But the turnover itself is a concern to me. Transitions, you know. New people. People Ingrid doesn’t want to say hi to. Etc.

And today we went for a visit with the proprietors of the soon to be started Expensive Day Care, and I’m going to just use my newly tuned mama bear instincts, skip my customary waffling, and say it’s a no. The caregivers’ little boys (same age as Ingrid) spent the visit running back and forth across the room screeching. As the mom of a low-energy, sit for long periods doing fine motor tasks kind of kid, I am just barely able to recognize this as normal, allowable behavior for two and a half year olds. I’m sure it is normal, but I am equally sure that Ingrid isn’t going to thrive on being in a 20 x 30 room with it two days a week.

And also, never mind what I said about perhaps being able to afford a nanny. We can’t, unless someone comes along who would like to be paid way too little.

So, it’s Crunchier Than Thou or something else. I have a couple of other leads to look into. I am somewhat confident that something or other will work out.

The good news—the really, really good news— is that Ingrid seems to be pulling out of the funk she’s been in for so long. I don’t know if it’s the end of the nasty sinus infection, the 11-day distance from Chaotic Bilingual Day Care, turning some kind of corner in adjusting to Iris, or some combination of those, but she is silly and laughing and reading and interested in things and content in a way she hasn’t been in longer than I can remember. It makes me so happy. It’s like seeing the leaves grow back on the trees in the spring.

One Decision Down

We visitied the Crunchier-Than-Thou option this morning and I was favorably impressed. The children were seven or eight notches calmer than at CBDC. No one zoomed in on Iris right away or tried to puncture her eyeballs with their little preschool fingers. There were whole moments (like, four seconds or so) during the morning in which each of the six kids was engaged in some pretty quiet activity and there was actual silence in the room. The kids seemed palpably happier and more at ease than at CBDC. Ingrid was uncharacteristically comfortable, leaving my side unusually early in the visit to try out an assortment of rhythm instruments and dance around with a scarf. The teachers were on the floor with the kids a lot and actively intervening when brattiness broke out.

Then we went for a long walk outside, and Ingrid cried and whined for a good four blocks. Four blocks of two-year-old walking. It was my fault; I hadn't brought boots or snowpants and she was cold. But it was a tantrum of mounting proportions and reasons and was fairly horrible, and I was calm and upbeat and empathetic for 3.95 blocks of it, and then I had a really really awful moment where I growled into her ear You need to stop crying right now. The thought crossed my mind that my picky search for child care is moot because anyone anyone on earth could do a better job at taking care of this child than I can, and that perhaps the nice people at this green little day care would not even want to take care of my snotty, snivelling wreck of a child.

Having recovered, mostly, from that, I think Crunchier-Than-Thou might end up being a good place for Ingrid. The contrast with CBDC, at least, makes me certain we won't go back there.

My reservations have to do with her readiness to be in that sort of situation at all, rather than anything in particular about this place. The walking tantrum pushed my buttons especially hard because it got at the crux of it: she can be so needy. I mean, unlike the other six kids there today, she doesn't seem to be able to just keep her mittens on, enjoy the scenery, accept a pine cone that another kid offers without being weirdly afraid of it, and walk. She has gotten used to a lot of one-on-one, a lot of hand-holding, a lot of narrating every damn thing we do and being prepared beyond reason for every single transition or change in plans, and she is very seldom able to just roll with what comes. Sometimes I think I am babying her too much by considering these things and what she needs most is to get away from me a little, into a place where she can safely learn some of this stuff. Other times I think this is just how she is; she just needs more closeness right now than any day care can offer, and it's kind of rude and violent to think of leaving her someplace where she's one of a herd.

Since so many (both! Both of my readers! Thank you!) vouched for the nanny option, I should touch on that: A nanny—a good nanny—is probably my best-case, most favorite option for this moment. But there are complications. First, finding the perfect person. Not easy, not guaranteed. Second, looking aheadl. I want Ingrid to be in some sort of preschool-esque setting next fall. We cannot afford nanny plus preschool, period. So if we hired a nanny now, it would mean not only another transition for Ingrid (and transitions, as you can tell, are rough) in the fall, but also finding something new for Iris at that point. And the preschool-esque thing would likely not be actual preschool anyway because we need the day care, not just the education/socialization aspect of it, so what would happen in summer? Temporary nannies? Too many transitions. So it would likely need to be a day care with a preschool curriculum of some sort, so why not just start that now and skip the extra transition time.

The other nanny issue is embarrassing: Ingrid is so frustrating right now, I am a little bit afraid to leave her with an unsupervised individual who does not already know and love her. I am seriously afraid that they would beat her. I am humiliated that I can think and say that about my daughter, but there you go. I mentioned it to A the other day and he nodded and said, I think that's reasonable. And you should meet A; he is the most patient person I have ever known.

That is my thinking at the moment, and if you are still reading I thank you heartily and apologize for the bad mothering, long sentences, and scrambled logic.

Listless

Since starting at Chaotic Bilingual Day Care, Inc., Ingrid has learned:

• to hit
  
• to throw things
  
• to sing two songs in Spanish
  
• to correctly use the phrase Oh. My. God., complete with dramatic pauses between words
  
• to hoard a pile of toys and say No! You can't play with these. They are mine!
  
• to herd a pile of stuffed animals on and off the potty chair one by one, commanding, Vamanos! Vamanos!
  

Scenes I have witnessed in the course of a dozen drop-offs and pick-ups at Chaotic Bilingual Day Care, Inc.

• Two kids taking turns hitting a boy who was cowering against the wall while the teacher was out of the room and the two teachers in the adjoining room who were supposed to be keeping an eye on things were not looking
  
• A little girl crying and clutching her teddy bear for several minutes before anyone noticed or tried to comfort her
  
• (Upon arriving to pick up Ingrid one day), Ingrid standing in the middle of the room looking bereft and fighting off tears while all adults were busy wiping fingers and cleaning up lunch messes
  

Reasons I think this isn't the best place for Ingrid

• See above.
  
• Very faint, if any, sense of rapport with the teacher.
  
• 24 kids, three teachers.
  
• Disturbed sleep and intense separation anxiety in all situations has lasted the whole six weeks she's been going there.
  

Reasons I question my gut feeling that we should find another place:

• Maybe this is just what day care centers are like.
  
• Maybe the separation anxiety and stressed-out demeanor are just what day care is going to be like for Ingrid anywhere.
  
• Maybe my lack of rapport with the teacher is mostly a cultural/language thing that would get better as I got to know her.
  
• Yesterday when I told Ingrid we were going to visit a new school, she asked, Will there be C (teacher at CBDC) there?.
  
• Many other characteristics of this place that, in paper and on my head, make staying seem like a no-brainer: healthy food, fun programs, neat environment, and most of all the bilingual, super-multicultural nature of the place.
  

Alternative option 1: Crunchier-Than-Thou Home Day Care

• Waldorf-y, with lots of open-ended craft stuff, cooking, gardening, and outdoor play.
  
• Six to ten kids; two to three teachers.
  
• 20% more expensive than (already stretching our budget) CBDC.
  
• We are visiting there tomorrow morning.
  
• They probably have a spot available on the days I need.
  

Alternative option 2: Expensive Start-Up Home Day Care

• Being started in January by two women who each have a son Ingrid's age.
  
• Caregivers have lots of child development education and experience with kids.
  
• Six to ten kids; two caregivers.
  
• Great rapport with caregiver on phone.
  
• Not started yet, so impossible to see beforehand what the environment will be like.
  
• 30% more expensive than CBDC.
  
• Space is probably available.
  
• We are meeting with the two caregivers on Friday.
  

Alternative option 3: Nanny

• Would cost about the same as having both kids at CBDC, even if we use a referral service and pay the nanny on the books.
  
• Super convenient.
  
• Ingrid would miss out on the time with other kids, the time away from Iris, and the benefits of a (however minimal) curriculum.
  

Iris's care is a whole other issue. Neither of the home day care options take infants. Part time infant care is nearly impossible to find around here. Our current plan is to have her at CBDC in the infant room. She is on the waiting list at Bland Hospital-Attached Day Care with Awesome Ratios and at Fancy No Vacancy, Ever University Day Care.

Thoughts?

Stream of Both And

It’s hard to sum up these days. Iris wore a lamb costume for Halloween, curly and soft and white, and Ingrid chose a chicken costume a month ago and talked about it to everyone she met, but she refused to wear the pants (even when Emmie offered to sing a song into them) or to put the hood up for more than a few seconds. She'd been all excited to wear it to music class and sing about being a chicken, but then would not put it on that morning, electing instead to carry two plastic eggs. We sang about her being a chicken, anyway. The day was a gauntlet of costume conflict and general unhappiness. She was so grumpy, trick-or-treating seemed out of the question. Then we lit five jack-o-lanterns from our bumper crop of pumpkins and we all stood quietly watching them flicker on the porch. Then we knocked on my brother-in-law's door and Ingrid chirped trick or treat like a pro, even though he was wearing a scary witch's hat, and the look on her face as she ate her first-ever Twix bar made me think, that's my girl.

We are using time outs now (“breaks”) because we don’t throw things no longer has any effect. She wants to wear underpants, wants, all of a sudden, to put them on herself, but she can’t quite pull them over her butt and she can’t quite make it to the potty in time and it makes her furious. Then she pees in the potty twice in one day and her whole body is proud. She gets frustrated to the point of fist-shaking trying to practice doing buttons and snaps and runs into the other room in a rage. Then, four hours later, she can fasten a button perfectly on the first try.

Iris is busting out of 9-month size clothes. Her cheeks have gone all Campbells Kid: plump and pink. Everone uses the word “pretty” for her, and she is. She rolled from her tummy to her back yesterday. She grabs things—toys, my hair, Ingrid’s.

Over the weekend we drove for five hours to stay at a lodge for three nights and attend our good friends’ wedding. Iris developed a scary, croupy cough that landed us in a tiny northwoods ER, where she spontaneously recovered and lay on the gurney cooing and grinning at the nurse and doctor.

A was the best man and I read a poem in the ceremony. Iris nursed until the second I handed her to my friend to head to the front. Ingrid was undone by the idea of sitting in a chair in the audience for two minutes, so she came with me and clung to my skirt, peeking out at the congregation while I read. I did not gaze thoughtfully at the happy faces of my dear friends as they promised beautiful things to each other; I was too occupied with making sure that neither child screamed too loudly and that my breasts were covered up by the time I appeared in front of the congregation.

Iris dandled happily in the Baby Bjorn for a good part of the weekend, grinning at people and becoming ever more proficient at sucking her hands. Ingrid was two children: overwhelmed by all the people and noise at the reception, cowering in fear and worry each time a kind grown-up approached to say hello and how cute are you. Losing all her bones and muscles over and over, overloaded. And then, in the quiet foyer, peaceful, imagining long dialogues with a stuffed moose and saying shy but composed hellos to the handful of wedding guests who wandered through. Overjoyed at a gift from the bride: a small plastic slinky. Beaming: I can take this to my home?

There was square dancing, and we all danced, Ingrid in A’s arms and Iris in mine, silly and carefree and all smiling at each other. For a couple of songs. And then I think the motion and commotion got to Ingrid; she started clinging to A, getting all weepy, and asking to leave.

On the way home in the car, while both girls slept, A and I talked about the shyness, the separation anxiety. We wondered if we’re asking too much of Ingrid right now: new baby sister, new school. We wondered if this school is a bad match for her: too many kids, too loud, too chaotic.

On one hand, I don’t like to be in a room full of people, friends or strangers. I do attend large parties when I have to, usually without lying on the floor crying, but it’s still not my favorite thing. Why should I expect Ingrid to like it? On the other hand, she’s got to learn, sometime, to be among a group of kids, even if it never becomes her favorite place to be. On still another hand, does she have to learn it just now? And then again, what are our other choices for child care? Not many. But maybe this is ok. Maybe it's just the transition and the potty and the buttons and the new life as a big sister and it will all shake itself out.

Then Ingrid woke up from her car nap all calm and started singing songs in Spanish, songs she must have learned from her four days at school, the last of them almost a week before.

She's at school now. She cried the whole time I was there with her. I was irked with the teacher for not giving Ingrid a warm greeting, but just talking to me, saying This is normal. It's ok. But then after I left the teacher went to her, wiped her nose, offered some ideas for play. I'm glad Tuesday is the Friday of her school week; we need a break and some time to think.

Fine

Who knew the first day of pre-school could make me sit on the edge of bawling for five days? Sheesh. I know she'll be fine... I've said to various people, choking back tear deluges of various magnitudes.

After my weepy four-hour insomnia thing Thursday night and after an unfortunate frog puppet incident which I won't get into, and after confirming that even A feels like throwing up when thinking of leaving her there all day long, we decided to make it a half-days for a while. Two days a week, half days. Financially this is sort of foolhardy. We are paying for two full days whether we use them or not. But we don't need the full days until I go back to work in January; we're just starting now because now's when the opening is available. And it just feels better to ease into it.

Ingrid woke up this morning excited about the much-hyped first day of school. She wore her striped pants. She'll be fine, the teacher said as I grappled with the doorknob and tried to make my hair hide from Ingrid the fact I was trying not to cry.

I came home and put away laundry and cooked sweet potatoes and nursed the baby and cleaned up the living room and read e-mail and nursed the baby and ate a cheese sandwich, all the while sort of feeling like time had been sucked into a weird little eddy. Then at 12:15 when it was time to get her everything started wheeling forward again.

She was fine, the teacher said. She didn't cry. She participated, and she made a project by herself. She played with the other kids outside. The project was the outline of a flower, colored in with water color paint. She's very mature, the director said. She did great.

I didn't sit in the circle, Ingrid said in the car. I was a little bit worried about you. That girl wanted to hold my hand. I ate rice. And milk. And fruit. Watermelon. I played on the slides. I didn't play with the beds. Will I sleep at school?

She does seem to be fine. She's napping. I do too, I guess. I think it is going to take me a while to get used to her days being such a mystery, though. I mean, watermelon and rice? Probably not absolutely accurate. Slides? Ok, but what about the other three and a half hours? And not crying but worried? She'll be fine, right?

Cold Feet

After writing about D leaving, I was all set to do an upbeat post (imagine!) about the day care center we chose and how exciting it is that Ingrid will start going there next week. Then we spent an hour there together yesterday and an hour this morning, and after thinking about it carefully pretty much every minute for the past couple of days, especially between the hours of 3 and 7 a.m. today, I really just have two things to say about it:

1. It is a wonderful day care center. It's a well-run, well-organized, bilingual, multicultural, exciting place where kids do fun projects, eat healthy food, learn, play outdoors, meet their neighbors, and get taken care of by grown ups who love kids.

2. Every time I think of leaving my little girl there all by herself I feel like bawling.

People keep telling me this will be much harder for me than for her. I sure hope they are right.

Care

I went back to work part time when Ingrid was six months old, and I spent a good part of my maternity leave racking my soul about the question of child care. Who could I trust with her? How could I turn the divine work of caring for her into a commodity, something I could pay someone—a stranger—to do?

I thought an in-home day care would be the best option. Less commercial. More like a family. I must have made a hundred phone calls that summer. Part-time openings for infants, it turns out, are in very short supply here. The handful of providers I found with available spots seemed to have fatal flaws. Large screen TVs blaring in the living room, for example. Or a home saturated with not only the smell but also the gritty, dry feel of cigarette smoke. Or a voice that just seemed too loud.

And then we got lucky.

Through a connection with one of A's coworkers, we met D. She had a part-time nanny job and could come to our house two days each week. This coworker recommended her highly. And she wanted to charge us embarrassingly little. So little that we could actually afford to hire her.

We did, and she fell in love with Ingrid, and vice versa. I am smitten, she said to me after a couple of days of taking care of our little girl. Each time D came to the door, Ingrid made her joyful, half-choked squeal. It was like having a celebrity come to visit twice a week.

It's sort of been a dream come true. A relationship that I feared—paying someone to do what I felt only I could or should do—has turned out to be a big, beautiful bonus for all of us. A and I have been able to know our baby is getting some of the best love around, and Ingrid has another stable, energetic, adoring grown-up in her life. She's learned so much from D. I've learned from her.

I've been on maternity leave since Iris was born, and we've still been having D come two or three mornings per week to play with Ingrid. And in the midst of this time of two and a half year old new big sister turmoil, when she's whining and clinging and crying every hour she's with me, with D, she is her normal, relaxed, chatty, undramatic self. I have many reasons to be grateful for the extra pair of hands in the house; one is that it's a relief to know that the non-tantruming Ingrid still exists. While our family is stretched and changing and in disarray, D and Ingrid have a constant, special friendship.

But now D is moving on to other things. Understandable—she's got an artistic career to get moving on and a lot to offer the world beyond ring around the rosy and the itsy bitsy spider. But it drags us out of paradise a little bit. For all the family-like affection we all have for each other, we're now having to do something that family members don't, except in the worst of cases, do: say goodbye. We'll see her again. But she's been a regular, rhythmic part of Ingrid's life since she was six months old, and that won't ever be the same.

Today is D's last day—last regular, ordinary day—with our family. The past few times I've seen her we've briefly brought up the upcoming ending and then shrunk away from really talking about it. I know she is as sad as I am. I don't know how I can ever really tell her how grateful I am, or how much we'll all miss her.