Daycare: Who Cried More?

I have been lucky enough to be a stay at home mom full time for the past year. Being able to see Sophia change and grow everyday for 13 months has been an amazing honor. It has been the most rewarding, demanding, under appreciated, exhausting, exhilarating job I have ever had. I was able to build and nurture a bond with my daughter that is my happiest achievement.

With that said, after a year of talking to a human being who does not talk back (yet) for the majority of my days and living in a quaint town where I know no one....I needed some adult time.  I am sure I will look back and cherish those first 13 months of me and Sophia time as she grows. However when you realize that you haven't left your house for 2 days and you are wearing the same combination of yoga pants and t-shirts on a daily basis, you begin to crave the "outside" world a little bit.

I was lucky enough to land a part time 2 day a week job at a local contractors office. Good pay, flexible schedule, hot boss...whats not to like?
My husband, Bill is my boss and has been very supportive of me going back to work on a part time basis, especially since it helps our bottom line and gets more done around his office. I on the other hand get to drive to work and drink Starbucks on the way, sit and do computer work (and chat on MS Messenger with my friends....shhh!!) and feel like I am only responsible for  me and the tasks at hand for 10 -ish hours a week. Its great!

Whats NOT great is the daycare drop off process....

Now let me say that we found a WONDERFUL daycare center 5 minutes from our house that takes 1 year olds part time. Its brand new and the director is wonderful and has a masters in Early Childhood which warms my elementary school teacher heart. Bill and I were very impressed with the center, the director, the staff and our neighbor's son goes there as well and they had only great things to say. So, all in all we got lucky and are very happy with the "school" Sophia goes to twice a week.

With that said....the first couple of days of daycare drop off is HORRENDOUS. There is no way around it. There is crying. Lots of crying. Baby crying. Mommy crying. Scared crying. Guilt crying. Separation anxiety crying. Just crying crying. And since my little miss is very aware at 13 months, she KNOWS I left her. She isn't a little baby blob who may sense that I am not immediately around but that she is safe. She can look around the room and say "not the momma, not the momma" and cry. :(

Needless to say every day for the first 2 weeks that I dropped her off I was a mess. As soon as she started sobbing, I would sob. I cry on my way out of the building, to the car, in the car, on the phone to anyone crazy enough to take my call (thanks Bill & Val & my mom). I would then make the mistake of going back to check or calling to check too soon and continue crying. I so wanted to run into that room, grab my baby and bolt.

But I didn't. And I am SO GLAD that I didn't. For the last week, Sophia did not cry one little baby tear and I didn't cry any big giant I'm a bad mommy tears. She had fun! Lots of fun! And I have started my refrigerator art gallery of pictures made with painted hand and feet prints :)

Handprint Flower

Handprints and 1st Macaroni Necklace

Everyone said "It gets better" and they were right....even though I didn't want to believe them.