Week Two.

Back at it, week 2.

This morning I dropped a very-unhappy little Nora off at daycare. She was fine as I unstrapped her carseat - she was even ‘whistling’ at the birds she saw on the power lines (going ‘ooo ooo ooo’ with pursed lips it’s the cutest thing) – and even as we entered Sue’s house. She started giving Sue the stink eye a minute later, and when I handed her over I got the baby chimpanzee clutch and the earfull of protest. When I waved bye-bye and left, I closed the door behind me and listened for screaming, and it was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep walking towards the car.

I just called just now (9:39) and apparently after I left, she sat down and barfed up her breakfast yoghurt, and then was fine. Hm. This is the second time Nora’s been to daycare, and the second time she’s barfed on Sue’s rug. Methinks she’s going to get herself a wee reputation. So not only is she no longer in the totally adorable outfit I put her in this morning (brand new t-shirt, new purple stretchy pants), she’s been changed into the emergency outfit I brought along – the shirt that’s covered in tomato stains that I noticed too late and pink pants that don’t totally fit anymore. Then she spilled water on herself in the highchair and Sue mistook it for a leaking diaper, so she changed her pants into daycare-issue hand-me-downs. My little urchin is now playing happily, dressed like shit, and this seems to be all I can focus on.

Let it go momma, let it go. She’s happy and playing with the other kids. So she doesn’t eat so well three mornings out of the week; she’ll make up for it at lunch and again at dinner, and then eat her fill at Oma’s on Mondays and Fridays. I don’t like the barfing but I’m not surprised; neither of her parents can stuff our bellies immediately after waking up, so why should she? I have to figure out this breakfast thing though. It’s not her favorite meal at the best of times, when we leisurely cruise in for breakfast at 9 a.m., so to expect her to wolf it down at 6:45 is asking a bit much.

What I really can’t take about this whole back to work routine is the mistrust. She now looks at me with a look of mistrust that breaks my heart. It’s a look that says “are you staying with me today, or are you leaving again? Where are you leaving me today?” and I can’t dwell on it as much as I do because it renders me non-functional.

Last week during my many moments of desperation I did all of the circular thinking around this change; I calculated how much it costs me annually to go to work ($12,000, including food, gas, parking, and a wee clothing allowance to be realistic) and figured out that it’s not financially worth quitting. I read a very interesting article about how Dutch women are doing exactly what they want to do, which usually includes working part time and spending the rest of their time being with their families or friends, and the ridiculous feminist hand-wrenching around the issue. I thought about our expenses and our revenues, and whether or not we could make it work on one salary and delay our dream of building a cottage until a time when Nora goes to school and I can re-enter work life with a more clear conscience, but that’s not quite do-able or right either. I considered whether or not my own job could be done from home or part-time (obviously it could, here I am writing this blog entry) but it would never fly with my boss or HR department. While my workplace is friendly, they are remarkably inflexible when it comes to arrangements like that. I thought about having a second child, so I can take another year off and spend it with Nora (and whassisname too, obviously). What my thinking exercise came up with is this: I am going to grow out my hair, so that I can just clip it up every day, and spend my blow-drying time in bed with Nora. There it is: I gained an extra 5 minutes a day and will look 8% crappier. And! I will save money on haircuts.

Which doesn’t solve my main problems, which are thus:

1. I miss Nora. I miss her so powerful much that it’s almost a physical response, like my guts are missing or something really dramatic like that.

2. It feels wrong to drop a one-year-old baby off at someone’s house for the day, as though all three of us are off to our respective locations every day. Like it’s her baby job. I drag her out of bed before she’s really ready and she’s all like “what the hell man?”

3. I have a hard time with the idea that for three days a week, Nora is on someone else’s routine, and ours is out the window. I have worked so hard to set a routine that works, and now it feels all loosey goosey and wrong. I worry about her food intake and her nap timing, and I worry about these things all day long. I try to impress upon Sue the importance of my routine and of jamming food into Nora, but all this barfing is leaving her unconvinced I’m sure.

4. Regarding said routine, I have a really hard time figuring out what to do about breakfast.

What I have to remember is what the Doctor tells me: she’s no longer a tiny baby. I no longer have to count millilitres of formula and tablespoons of food, I have to let her regulate what she wants and trust that she will get enough. I have to let go and realize that she’s big enough to make her own way in the universe a little bit, to hang out with other kids and develop socially in a way that she just doesn’t get by hanging out with me and the dog all day. I don’t want her barking before she can talk, after all. On Thursday she spent the day at daycare with 5 other little ones and on Friday, at Oma’s, she decided to try to walk all day. I also have to think that we avoid a lot of anguish when it comes time to start school, as she’ll already be used to a morning get-up-and-go-somewhere-else routine.

Deep breaths, deep breaths. When I had the baby, it was the most difficult thing I’d ever done in my life. As it turns out, leaving her is a hundred times harder.