Pressure Cooker

Our baby is due sometime in the next two months. Understandably I am feeling a slight amount of pressure (understatement) about one major thing: Finding a happy comfortable childcare situation for our newborn daughter by the fall. The first years of Matthew's little life all with reference to child care were stressful, scary and not fun.

I am fairly certain I ended some friendships based on the angry, disjointed feelings I had about being a working mom, about not having the luxury to leave my job or the support from my husband to leave my job.

Money sustains us as much as I do not want to believe this at times. I would love to spend my days playing with my boy, being the sole provider of discipline and love, learning and growth.

On the flip side, it is just not going to happen both because we need money to live our lives and because Kevin is just not down with me leaving my job. SO we are here. AND I am happy to be here.

Matthew spends his days at a place he loves with a person he loves and we love that. That is happiness for me with respect to child care. I could ask for nothing more. I have not felt so grounded and secure with Matthew's care since my maternity leave when I was the one doing it. The most interesting aspect of this all is that it shows. I was calmer, I was able to lose weight, I smiled more, I showed up happy most every day to work, I felt less down and out... It was seriously an amazing transformation for me to notice over the months since Matthew started at Kelly's.

Oddly enough three years ago as it is now, I also love my job. There is no other place like it. I get paid well, I work hard, and I feel I am likely a better mommy for working (as that is my case and not the case for others I understand this NOW.) Work is part of my family and we are treated as such. It is not just another job -- this is the job I will do until I decide to retire or the company ends.

However, the worst times I have were during those early months. I resented my job and being away from child not because I wanted it to be that way but because I felt so horribly uncomfortable with the people who were caring for him. Yet, I felt stuck. We were limited by money and so we chose the best things we felt we could do at those times even though they were not ideal for us.

With all of that said, Kevin and I have not done anything to find anyone to look after Baby Pancake yet. I am not sure why. Neither of us can really put our finger on the why of this. Perhaps, it has to do with the fact that we have done this three times before with Matthew and we both now it is a lot of work which neither of us have had much energy for lately.

For me, it has to do with the old feelings welling up inside me which are that I just want to stay home with my baby until she is old enough to go to school. To quit work and enjoy my kids. I long for that again when I thought I had left it behind. And I have in degrees. I mean I definitely will not whine near as much as I did and I am sure there will be tears when I leave my baby girl with someone those early first days but I also know I am stronger and better by working (for me.)

We are slowly beginning the process again. We are placing an ad in the local news and a couple of websites that offer us some exposure. We need to change our phone message to screen for people who might call. We are planning to sign up on a nanny site to see if we can find anyone that way. I am hopeful we will find the right thing for Baby Pancake right away. I am scared that we might not. But until we try we will not know. Mostly I am just trying to be hopeful, peaceful and strong about it all, I am trying to keep on smiling no matter what because in the end everything works out.

Can You Guess The Time?

Ohh sounds like a fun game, eh?! Yeah well not so much. for me. I woke up at 3:30a exactly. WIDE awake. Fretting in a major way. I will hate myself later today but it is now 4:39am so if you guessed in that range, you are the BIG winner. Winner of what, you wonder? Hmm, well nothing but if you keep reading you can hear about what I am freaking out about.

For starters, Matthew's party. Which is just so utterly lame I want to tell myself to go take a leap off a tall building but well I am feeling stressed about it, I guess. I am so unprepared this year. The past two years I have been on top of things. This year, mmm, not so much. I still have not fully committed to the house cleaning service so I am trying to get the house in shape before the party. OH wait no before my in laws arrive ON WEDNESDAY which is always just plain stressful for me. While they are charming folks, it is just tiresome to have house guests and even more so when I am pregnant. At least they have a quiet area away from the main living area but still...

I have NO cake and really the only thing I have done at this time is vacuum the basement. Sigh. OH and presents for Matthew from us, you ask? Ah yeah we have two small items that we planned to buy anyway. Nothing else... I feel like I am just out of it this year on so many levels and not just for Matthew's birthday but taking care of people I love and care for... I seriously bought Kevin NOTHING for his birthday this year.

Mostly the birthday thing got me thinking about all the stuff we have not done for the new baby. I mean the room and the needing of stuff is minor but it is still not done. It is getting there (hopefully.) I think that a huge part of the feeling of getting stuff done is that OMG IT IS APRIL 14th and we are closing on the THIRD trimester - HELP! I know in my heart of hearts that everything will come together that needs to come together AND also that what does not will not matter.

Nice thing about the in laws visiting is that Kevin's father offered to paint Pancake's room and so we are taking him up on that offer!

However, the thing that really got up and out of bed was panicking about child care for wee tot Pancake. We have done virtually nothing but talk. It is April 14th and the way I see it we have little time left to get everything we really need to do in order to make a logical, educated decision about who should look after Pancake when she arrives and I must go back to work.

First, we need to look at how to do it properly this time. The last time we had a nanny we paid her under the table and we were left feeling guilt ridden 24/7 because we gave her way to little for what she did and we felt like we could never hold her accountable for anything. I do not want to feel this way. I would rather stay home.

I just know from our experiences with Matthew when he was a babe that finding the right person can take months and months and really we did not find the right situation until Kelly decided to do day care from her home. Which meant the first 2 years of Matthew's life I was stressed out and VERY unhappy, frustrated and angry at the world. Ohh yeah I am sure I was a charmer during that time period... I remember a lot of tears & guilt, pathetic.

SO here I am at 4:49a in a panic trying to decide how to proceed looking up nanny agencies and logging on to Craigslist. I need to try to go to sleep because I am tired but now I am hungry too. I think I will go check out the cereal selection, watch some TV and sleep for an hour or so...

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AND I am back briefly, at work. I have to say that panicking in the middle of the night is neither wise nor helpful. I did get to see that the forecast is rain & fairly cool temps for Matthew's party which added to my bummed out feelings. Also, it is supposed be cloudy on Friday for the Zoo - Hopefully the rain and cooler temps will hold off until after the Zoo. I am just so over the weather.

I am off to try to order a cake at this late date. And balloons and I need to clean the bathrooms tonight. Ta-ta for now.

Tea for two

Yesterday, our friend and day care "provider", Kelly, had her air conditioning go out. Actually, I think it went over the weekend but yesterday it was 93 in good old Indiana. It was hot. So Kelly some how managed to keep four children under the age of 3 entertained until she could no longer handle the heat (I would have melted long before she did so YOU ROCK!) Then took the kids to the air at her neighbor's house. That neighbor being a piece of cake. Later, we picked Matthew up and went home as usual.

At dinner, we asked Matthew what he did during his day and he said "We went to Kate's house..."
"Wow", we said. "Well what did you do there?"
Matthew said with a thrilled and excited look on his face "we had a tea party! AND we had ice cream!." *pure rapture on his face.
"Wow", that is so cool", we said.

Later, I talked with Kelly and I told her about this conversation. Kelly said that Matthew was very excited about the tea set and got right into it. Also, that the above mentioned ice cream was from a play set of plastic ice cream that the kids all shared! As we talked about this I remembered that at Matthew's old day care, the kids who came early had tea parties in the morning. With real (herbal) tea, honey and milk! Matthew LOVED this activity more than anything!

One the of major reasons I relate this entire story to all of you few poor souls who read this blog... we have been trying to figure out how to get Matthew more comfortable with this day care transition situation. There is no doubt that Matthew loves his parents - he does not want us to leave in the morning. BUT he also LOVES him some Kelly's house as well because at the end of the day he does not want to leave there either. PLUS he misses his old daycare.

Case in point, we went to Kid Kazooey this past weekend. I realized most of you were probably all 'what the hell is a Kid Kazooey?' Kid Kazooey played music once a week at Matthew's old day care and Matthew was apparently quite taken by the Kid. Matthew told me after seeing Kid Kazooey that he loves him! Which is great, right?! Well, wrong (sort of), Matthew was terribly confused about things by Sunday. It dawned on me that I never really talked with Matthew before or after seeing Kid Kazooey about how he might feel about seeing this huge personality from his old day care. About seeing kids from his old day care and how that would make him feel. About a day care situation that really did offer Matthew some wonderful experiences that he obviously not forgotten...

Basically, we do a lot of talking with and to Matthew but hardly ever really get to talking about feelings and experiences that might affect Matthew. For instance, this morning we talked with Matthew about Kelly' house and how we had to go to work but we would be there after work to pick him just like yesterday. That he loves Kelly and Grayson and how it would be all right. Matthew immediately started a pretend cry and even tried the usual morning grab Daddy and don't let go routine but this time without the tears. At this point, we reminded Matthew what we talked about in the car on the ride over. We also engaged him by talking about perhaps having a tea party at Kelly's like the one they had yesterday at Kate's house. He gave us a kiss, jumped down and smiled as we left.

It all seems so simple, right? And it is. It is just that something I think we forget that these little people are just that - people with feelings, memories and emotions. That my BABY is no longer a tiny baby cooing and grasping and clinging to me for every thing... but a thinking, learning little being who can tell me what he is feeling and experiencing every day but he must be given the opportunity to do this. often. without me talking at him and being open to his life experiences... because thankfully he can tell me all of this - if I just stop, and listen.

Parenting is such humbling experience!