Full time

Tuesday, as we picked Bear up, his teacher said, "We have a full time slot opening on Monday and one on the 26th. Which do you want?" Even though I knew this day was coming, my heart sank a little bit. Since December Bear has gone to daycare 3 days a week. It hasn't been easy to cram everything both C and I need to get done into a 4 day work week (the way we split child care usually meant we each got an additional days worth of work, although it may have not been in the same day), but we managed, in part because child care is so expensive here and because we weren't ready to send Bear full time.

At the end of the spring term, we talked about Bear and full time care at length. C isn't getting enough work done, and he has genuine concerns about tenure (which is the topic for another post). I'm not getting any of my own work done, and I have serious concerns about ever securing a t-t job. Wild Man starts Junior Kindergarten in the fall, and will only go to daycare half days, which means we can afford to send Bear full time. We both agreed it is the best decision, especially as I will be teaching a 4-4 load this coming academic year. We spoke with Bear's teacher and she said a spot would be opening up in July or August. I expected late July, not early July.

C wants us to take the spot that starts next week, and I don't want to. He has said it is totally my decision, so I don't know what to do. It seems a bit strange to be upset about sending Bear to daycare when I've already been sending him for 6 months. He just seems to be growing up so, so fast, and given my work schedule this past year, I really feel like I've missed a lot of time with him. There are times when he actually prefers C to me, and that makes me a little jealous. I do love that he and C are so much closer than C and Wild Man were when Wild Man was 1, but that also reminds me that I wasn't with him as much when he was an infant as I was with Wild Man. Or at least I don't feel like I was. I know that in many ways I got more time with Bear, but I also felt like I was going in 14,000 different directions when he was an infant. I think I'm suffering from some "my baby is 1" blues. This year has gone by so fast. I just want him to be my baby a little bit longer.