Happier Mornings

One of the greatest difficulties for our family over the past year and half has been the ever-changing situation for our son. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you will remember our hesitation to put our son in daycare for a limited time. When his brief time in daycare was finished we were very excited to see it go despite the fact that it was better than we had expected. At any rate, our work schedules have been in constant rotation with frequent changes. At one point my wife had our son with her at work, then … Continue reading

The End of Daycare

This week my son had the most important unofficial graduation of his life. He “graduated” from daycare. You might remember our hesitation about placing our son in daycare months ago. Despite our overall positive experience with the daycare itself and the daycare providers we are certainly overjoyed to have finally reached the summer months and reconnect with our sons weekday activities in the comforts of home. While my wife was in a meeting this past week I took our nearly-out-of-daycare son to a nearby park and places his little body on the teeter-totter. He instinctively grabbed onto the little bars … Continue reading

Mother’s Day Extended

My wife looked forward to Mother’s Day this year. Last year our son was largely a mystery to us but she felt his presence through kicks and viewed it through the necessity for a different type of clothing (maternity). This year our son is crawling, sprawling, crying, laughing, talking and playing. Mother’s Day was sure to be a joyous occasion. My son even helped me pick out flowers to be delivered to Mom on the special day. While there was much to be happy about, Mother’s Day extended long past Sunday this year. It all started Saturday night. My son … Continue reading

Amazing Sick Day

You know that you’ve angered someone, somewhere, when you wake up after a restful night of sleep and your child is whimpering with a temperature of 103. I’m not sure who I upset but my son was not a happy camper mid-week and this has certainly had its effect on the remainder of the week and my ability to do all sorts of things. There are lots of bad things when you have a sick child. Lots. You have to reschedule your life around the baby. You have to quickly figure out who’s going to skip work (or what babysitter … Continue reading

The Daycare: One Month

We’ve had our son in daycare for a month now and I must admit things have been much better than we could have imagined. Our fears of leaving the care of our son in someone else’s hands has not completely gone away but we are quite comfortable and confident in the staff at our daycare (even if we still think we’d be doing a better job ourselves). That said, the experience has been a positive one for both our son and his parents. This marks the one month reflection of a difficult decision. One month ago we were worried about … Continue reading

The Productive Morning & The Sick Boy

I’ve recently been writing about the horror of seeing my son in pain. He’s had a cold. This morning, however, my wife and I were awoken bright and early compliments of our son. He was sick. His temperature was above 100 degrees and he was miserable. My wife dutifully comforted and fed him. I, feeling a type of concern in my gut that I normally don’t, got up to do the dishes (as our cooking adventures had left quite the mess). This was the start of the productive morning. After nursing my son and laying him in his crib for … Continue reading

The Daycare & The Cold

Less than 1 week into Daycare and my son is already sick. I suppose this should be a common enough occurrence but it certainly doesn’t make Mom & Dad feel any better about putting our child into daycare. Is the environment clean? As far as I know. Is the staff trained? Yes. Are they kind and caring? They certainly seem to be. So what is the problem? I’m really not sure. Perhaps it is the other kids. My son has been super healthy since his birth… so hearing him snore because his sinuses are clogged is not a pretty sight … Continue reading

Daycare Day 1: Evening

It turns out that the day didn’t go badly for my son at all. The accounts given to us by the employees and the administrator were extremely positive. They told us that he had the best first day of any of the babies at this relatively new facility. That sure does make Mom & Dad feel good. That evening my son was laughing with glee and giggling more than he ever had before. He was happy. He was at his house with his parents and they were spending time with him. I’m not certain that this wasn’t influenced heavily by … Continue reading

Daycare Day 1: Morning

The morning came particularly quickly on my son’s first day of daycare. Despite my wife’s best efforts to have everything neatly organized in bags near the door the morning still felt rushed, uncomfortable, and different. I had a little talk with my son. As a father I felt it was my duty to tell him that today was going to be different. I told him that we weren’t abandoning him and that his mom was going to check in on him at lunchtime and pick him up early. I told him that he would be with other babies and some … Continue reading

Another Reason Not to Put Your Kid in Daycare

For some parents there is simply no other choice. They either place their child in daycare or live on the streets. Still, opponents of outsourced childcare insist that the amount of money parents spend paying for someone else to raise their children basically negates the income they are generating from working outside their home. My take is that it is an extremely personal decision; one that takes a huge amount of sacrifice regardless of whether you give up your chosen career and stay home with your child or you remain at your job and pay strangers to watch your kid. … Continue reading