Mommy-guilt comes to the surface readily these days. I am not sure if it is directly as a result of our fall or just the emotions of pregnancy in general, but either way, it is like a stab to the heart when it hits.
Dave is sick - it is finally his turn. As a result, I dropped Isabel off at daycare this morning. I knew that drop-off has always been easy; she loves her daycare provider and her playmates. I knew this. However, what I encountered when I got there brought tears to my eyes.
When we walked in the door, the other little girl was already there and was standing at the door, waiting for Isabel. When Isabel walked in, they were both grinning from ear to ear. I knelt down to help Isabel get her coat and boots off, but before I could, she walked right over to the other little girl, took hold of her hands and they gave each other the cheesiest grins, while they both squealed. They hugged one another and Isabel said "Hi!" to her over and over again. This was honestly, the sweetest show of affection I have ever seen.
Izzy came back to me to get undressed, but was off again immediately - they chattered to one another for the remaining couple of minutes I was there. Not even a backward glance or "bye mama", which is fine with me.
What is bothering me, you ask? I will be taking Isabel out of daycare during my maternity leave in order to cut costs. I know this is best for our family, but this made me really wonder if it is best for Isabel. She is such a social little being. She talks about her daycare friends all weekend long, sometimes pretending they are at home playing with her. I feel awful that she won't see them much, if at all, during the year I am off and possibly not again since we won't necessarily get our daycare spot back. What's more, how am I going to provide her with an environment in which she will thrive socially the way she does there, especially with a needy little Newbie at home too. I had thought about all of this before, but it didn't seem like it was a major issue. She loves us and I try to play with her and have fun with her whenever I possibly can. This shed a lot of light on just how much she gets from being in daycare though. I am really sad and am feeling a lot of guilt about taking that away from her :(
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Any chance of a one or two day a week arrangement with the day care? To give you a break and some time alone with the newb as much as anything?
ReplyDeleteI would jump on a situation like this, but our daycare is a small home daycare (very strict rules surrounding these kinds of places) and she (understandably) can't afford to take up one of her spots with a part-time kid :(
ReplyDeleteWhat if there were another part-time kid to share the spot with? I've seen ads on Kijiji before, looking for people to share spots with.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a bad idea. I hadn't thought of (or seen ads for) that. I will look into it.
ReplyDeletealso you'll have me for a couple of months in the summer, which will help, and even though Izzy *loves* her daycare, (Kieran used to cry when I'd bring him home, which was nice...) she'll *LOVE* being home with you once she's used to that again, and then you'll have the opposite and equally horrible job of sending her back to daycare, with the newb, and everyone will cry every day.
ReplyDeleteI mean, don't worry, it'll be great! just a couple of very brief horrible patches, and the rest of the time you'll be wonderful. truly.