see-saw

Yeah, yeah, I know, get blogging already...The past three days have been such a range of ups and downs that I just collapsed in exhaustion last night. I was only a few steps behind Luke, who was almost catatonic in his zombie-ness.

So we've had a series of goods mixed with bads. Bads started with Silvia leaving, which was far sadder and tearier than I had anticipated. It made me wonder - Was I being just way too petty with all of the things that she did that really bugged me? I mean, she truly loves Luke as her own. Isn't that enough? Then I told myself that of all the things that were changing, her love for him was one thing that was not going to change. I mean, we don't have to pay her for that part of it. Or we could pay her, for instance, to babysit, now that we can afford a babysitter.

One weird thing is that the house just seems empty. Like I made a big roast the other day, and I was thinking, Silvia is going to love this - oh wait, she's not here...And when we came home yesterday, it was so weird to think that the house had been empty and not played in all day...But on the bright side, it wasn't any messier than when we left it. And hey, now we can afford having someone to come clean the house!

Luke's first day did not start very auspiciously. He woke up with a bad cold and in a sad and clingy mood. His mood perked up, though, when Dave told him it was time to go to school. He ran to the door, lunch bag in hand, beyond excited that he was going to ride in the back seat of Dave's car. But then - as the see-saw swings - it turned out that Teacher Beverly was out sick for the day. ("Where Beverly? Where Beverly?") The separation and leave-taking, as Dave reports it, was painful. But then as far as we know he was OK for the day. He was crying at naptime, and had to be patted down for 45 minutes or so and seems to have slept for an hour, and then by the time I got there he was glad to see me, but almost marginally annoyed that I was going to take him away. So, some good mixed with bad, or at least that's the best I was able to reconstruct it. Let me add that I'm more than a little frustrated that I can't really get good information about the day. I've had to do some detective work and interviewing of witnesses, but the real story lies somewhere in the recesses of Luke's brain.

I know millions of kids go to day care every day, but I'm still not fully sold on the idea. In fact, since no one out of all of the many kids we know actually goes to day care, we're sort of being viewed as an oddball test case by all of our friends. I almost feel a little defensive about it, like I'm compelled to paint a much rosier picture to them about what it's like, just to be able to justify this decision. If it goes poorly, I can just hear the wagging and clucking.

Luke was still pretty floppy today but he managed to hold it together for a fun trip to Dave's office to see Uncle Matt and Aunt Berta and Other Uncle Bill and Roxy the fish. After taking part in so many mom-discussions about discipline, and reading online comments from other moms, Bill's "there's no point in having rules" child-rearing philosophy is a welcome breath of fresh air. I get so bugged by the "you have to show them who's in charge" discipline mentality when in many cases it seems like it's more a case of an insecure parent grasping at straws for a way to assert control. Do we have a mellow kid because we deal with him in a mellow fashion, or just because he's mellow? And is it true that the firestorm of tantrums really will hit us at some point, or is it possible to just sail by that stage? For now I told Dave I'm sticking with Dad's "four c's of childrearing" - con, coerce, cajole, capitulate - with cajole being the primary motivator these days.

So we've got a lot to unpack in the next few weeks. But for now, we have a kid who is maybe/possibly/sorta OK with the idea of school and tentatively/reluctantly/hesitantly OK with the idea of staying there for the day - and who sleeps in a big-boy bed, eats in a big-boy chair, and doesn't even ask for "money milk" anymore. How about no more big changes in the next five weeks or so? Deal.