Daycare

If you would have asked me two years ago if I would put Olivia in daycare I would have hissed at you and snatched her closer to me. My postpartum anxiety was so bad back then that the mere thought of giving her up to someone else during the day would have been unfathomable. And then I would feel guilty because so many don’t have this luxury of staying home/working from home. Feel free to come burn my house down or something. I would totally understand.

When work started picking up, I was doing more weekends and evenings because her naptimes and my two hours of childcare at the gym wasn’t cutting it. And that was hard. We looked at our finances and decided it made sense to try two days of daycare a week, so I could work and therefore, have more time to pick up more writing gigs. Last month I quadrupled my salary and Olivia started daycare twice a week.

It’s been amazing. Olivia is thriving there. The first week she was upset with me leaving, especially the second day. But then she would just smile and wave and when I returned, she would barely acknowledge me because she was having so much fun with her friends. And the best part is she is even napping there on the cot! A miracle. The woman actually was my old babysitter growing up so that’s a pretty small world, since I had no idea she ran a daycare out of her home. Her mom was my old daycare lady way back so it’s pretty cool. Olivia does so well with her.

And I am getting so much work done. It’s been amazing. And the time away from each other has been so good for both of us. This was a picture sent to me on her first day:

And then later on when I picked her up from her first day:

This change is good for us. And we’ve found a new way to tire the toddler out.