We decided to enroll at Daycare #2, with M, the lovely and professional director, with the preschool-like schedule, with the playground in the back yard, with the two block walk.

Seamus will be there two days a week, which gives me one day to clean and another day to spend as I choose. Which means that Saturdays can be family day and Patrick can have Sunday off for himself. They can still have father-son time in the mornings, and Faolan gets time with me during the week that’s Seamus-free. Seamus will have a consistent pack of friends to play with and will begin learning how to be around others, which I’m glad he’s getting before we make any of the big life changes we’ve been discussing as of late.

I get to think about how to return to the paid workforce. And work on some of the more amusing aspects of home care. And we’ll all have a bit more ease in our weekly schedules. And he’s so ready to be with other kids. I think he’ll thrive. I think we all will.

While reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar:

Seamus (pointing to a picture of the moon): That’s a ball

Me: No, that’s not a ball, it’s the moon.

Seamus: No, it’s a ball.

*  *  *
After I picked him up from daycare yesterday, before dinner:

Seamus (pulling on my shirt): Please? Pleeeeeeeeeeeease?

Me (sitting on the couch): Would you like to nurse?

Seamus: Of course!

*  *  *
Right now he’s playing peek-a-boo with his puzzle of farm animals.

During yesterday’s stroller nap, I noticed a lot of juvenile birds. Young ducks and robins filled my path, still fuzzy in odd places where they had yet to fill in their big-bird feathers and smaller than their parents, who shadowed and flanked their movements. Not yet booted out of their nests, they swam and hopped along looking for food, looking around, and figuring out how things work in their expanded world. Their parents watched, letting them feel things out.

It soothed me to watch them. About a month ago decided to put Seamus into daycare part time, partially to give me more time to do the home-making work that must get done without worrying about him hurting himself or destroying something while my back is turned, which would let me rejoin family activities on the weekends and give Patrick a break, and also to expand his world. Between planned Dada-time and differences in nap schedules, planning time for him to see other kids has been difficult for a while. I had a little luck with the child development non-credit classes through CCSF, but you all know how that ended. I tried to go back, but I found myself dragging my feet in the mornings, and just stopped. And it didn’t solve the housework vs family time problem anyway.

A couple of weeks ago I started to look, using a weird triangulation of Craigslist ads, attempts to get a referral from the Children’s Council of SF, Go City Kids, Berkeley Parents Network, anywhere I could find a lead. I also looked at doing a nanny-share or paying another mom to provide childcare. And after a few interviews and visits, I decided to try out a new-ish, small family daycare in the neighborhood with ridiculous flexibility. The woman who operates it (along with her mother and her daughter) was a preschool teacher in Moscow, and moved here two years ago. Everyone’s English was okay but not great, the in-law unit they operated in was clean and childproofed, and Seamus going one day a week was fine. We did a trial day and things seemed okay at drop-off.

I had some problems at pick-up.

First, when I rang the doorbell, A man came out of the main house to open the gate. This in itself was not a problem, nor was his schmoozy hand-kissing “beautiful mama” shtick (I’ll allow it once), but I didn’t know how he was related to the women running the place, as I’m pretty sure I didn’t see his name on the license. Second, when I came into the center, the kids were watching a Dora video. Damnit, if I wanted him to watch lots of TV while I cleaned, I could let him do that at home, for free. Seamus was glad to see me, but not frantic. I walked him home thinking that this may be okay if I kept looking, sure he didn’t eat much, but he played and napped much better than I thought he would. Maybe it would work if I started taking us to classes and kept up a steady calendar of activities! and socializing!

The next day we visited a SAHM whose little boy is two weeks older. Her house wasn’t childproofed, and while Seamus loved the shotgun hallway for running (Edwardian apartment), he also loved poking around with the expensive carbon-frame bike leaning against the wall. The mom seemed nice, she had a good little schedule for the kiddos, but personality-wise I don’t think she and I clicked very well. I kept looking at ads. Lots of new daycare places in our neighborhood. Which, given my experience thus far with the Ladies from Moscow, was not thrilling me. I had nixed the nanny idea in hopes that a daycare would provide more socialization.
Seamus went to their place again on Monday. at drop-off, I discovered that the other two boys who came on Mondays didn’t arrive until noon. So what was my boy doing all morning? Was he really doing the art and music that was allegedly part of the morning program? Or was he hanging out in the main house? I came home and opened Craigslist again. And found an ad for the daycare two blocks away. I’d seen kids coming and going over the years since we moved to this house, so I called. Spoke to the director who gave me a rundown of the program, the group size, her staff, and it all sounded good, so I made an appointment to tour, after picking Seamus up.

I arrived early so we could make it, apologizing and lying about a preschool tour. Seamus was frantic this time, hugging me and repeating “nurse?”, “thank you”, and “bye-bye”, the first to me, the latter to the daycare director. He would not let me put him down, and he fussed until we got out. I buckled him into the carseat, gave him the smoothie I made, and turned around to see the man again, returning from walking a large version of Faolan.

More of the “beautiful mama, beautiful boy” bit, which bothered me a LOT. Seamus looked at him and kept saying “bye-bye, bye-bye, bye bye”. I did the smile-and-wave bit from The Madness of King George, got into the car and took off. And chewed my lower lip ragged on the way home.

If you’ve met Seamus, you know that this is atypical behavior. This is a kid with no stranger anxiety, no separation anxiety, and little mama-clinginess in his waking hours. This didn’t feel like adjustment issues the way it did last week. Whatever this was, I don’t want to encounter it again.

I parked back in front of our house and we walked up the street to Daycare #2. Rang the doorbell, breathed.

So far so good.

The daycare is licensed for 8, and the economy has left her with two spots and a ragged waitlist. She’s originally from Georgia and has been here for twenty years, so English is the primary language spoken , with some Russian and Georgian (there is a little boy there who speaks only Georgian at home). The kids range in age from 19-27 months, aside from one 10 month-old and her three year-old son. The space is big with lots of toys and a playground out back. M, the director, had a schedule of their day to give to me, a fee run down, and was both friendly and professional. We have a trial day next Monday, and if it works out Seamus will go twice a week (her minimum).

Despite his clingy behavior when I picked him up, when I got the the center, I put Seamus down to let him check things out.  He didn’t look at me for twenty minutes. He didn’t want to leave.

So far so good. Fingers crossed.

Dear Seamus,

You turn twenty months old tomorrow, and I’ll confess right now that I’m not quite so sure how this happened. Who is this long-legged yet still tiny boy who talks all day long and loves to dance and play catch, and how did he spring out of my little baby? As you’ve grown you’ve begun to know your own mind and express yourself. Some days you are completely familiar like my hands, and other days I can see the teenager waving from eleven years off.

In April you took your first road trip with Grandma, Poppy, Annie, Da’ and I, driving from Las Vegas to Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, Navajo Bridge, and Zion National Park. You surprised me with how well you travel after the first few days of newness and botched schedule. You adapted to the looser parts of the itinerary, the long passages in the car, and the restaurants with toddler grace, only wanting more nursing since I sat next to you in the back seat. I’ll admit to hoping you’d stay with you sippy cups since nursing required seatbelt-free torquing of my spine while I cursed my utter failure to do any core conditioning post partum, but torque you wanted. It was worth it to realize that the weekend trips from last fall weren’t just hard on me but also on you; and lo, while the first three days traveling with you meant crap naps and no sleep without waking to offer you a breast every time you arched and kicked, on the fourth day you rested.

I spent your eighteenth month in cautious delirium about your failure to hit sleep regressions, and when you turned nineteen months, this bit me so deeply that I might be able to wear jewelry in the tooth marks. Not everything was bad, after all, you finally gave me the one thing I have wanted for year - reliable napping without constant nursing. But oh boy kiddo, the nights have been horribly uneven and you have spent many nights in bed with us. We’re really tired, your Da’ and I, so we’ve decided to night-wean you. I’m sorry baby, because it must suck, but we want to be present with you during the day, and this is our only solution.

Your days amaze us. I can see two different gears in your language development. Acquisition, which you’ve been grooving along with quite nicely since your fifteen-month appointment, and construction, where you’re pulling apart the words and phrases you know and recombining them to express a specific thought or desire. I love watching you do this. It’s the big move towards emerging completely from babyhood, and while I feel wistful about my baby vanishing, I enjoy seeing the boy emerge.

Love,

Mama