typealice

Dear Ash,

You’re 21 months old today and I love you and YOU LOVE ME. Do you know how I know that? It’s because you told me so! Music to my ears, kiddo, it was pretty much the best thing I’ve heard since your first giggle. You were riding on your tricycle around the house and you stopped in front of the kitchen door and said, “love you!” Oh my. It was magic.

Let’s get the yucky stuff out of the way, shall we? You started day care this month, a brand new day care that only has a few children and therefore quite a lot of attention from your teacher, Christina. First, I’ll say that you really seem to like it there. Now, I know I’m not there all day long with you, but you’re never sad when I leave you (outside of the one morning when I sat and nursed you causing you to be a little more clingy than usual), and when I ask you if you want to go to school you say an enthusiastic “yes!” Christina is nice and gentle and you guys do things like play with trucks and cars, go outside for walks in the stroller, paint and have circle time and do crafts.

Saying that, I miss you incredibly and have been having a hard time not seeing you. You’re still so young, and even though people have been encouraging me and telling me it’s okay for both of us to be apart for so many days of the week, I really feel as though I’m going against all of my instincts to have you there as often as you are. This is especially hard for me because I have parented you so fully on instinct- more than any advice I’ve been given or books I’ve read- it’s all been sensing what you need and giving it to you in the best of my ability. Having you in an atmosphere of a day care this much screams to me that I’m making the wrong decision- that this is not how it’s meant to be, regardless of your apparent happiness at being there and playing with friends. I’m your parent, I’m the most important person in your life, and we need to spend as much time together as possible while you’re still this young. I’ll worry about you spending more time away from me when you’re 10, 20, 30, but right now you’re not even two years old.
Here is our family on your first day of day care:

And here’s you, with your bag full of extra clothes and diapers:

After this month at day care, and doing our budget, I spoke with your father and my boss at work and we came to an agreement that I can stay home an extra day with you (Wednesdays), and that makes me feel so much better. It literally feels like 100lbs has been lifted off of me. So your weeks look like this:

Sunday: Family day with mom and dad
Monday: Mom and Ash day
Tuesday: Day care
Wednesday: Mom and Ash day
Thursday: Day care
Friday: Day care
Saturday: Dad and Ash day

I hope it’s a good balance for everyone. I especially love the fact that you get to spend a full day with your dad, because up until this point it’s pretty much only been an hour or two each morning and dinnertime with him. He started working a second job when you were just three months old, so you haven’t been able to spend a great amount of quality time with him. He’s been taking you fishing every day, where you get to play with a rod and reel and once you get bored with that, you like throwing rocks into the water.

Your dad picks you up from day care at 6pm and when you come into the house you run to greet me, and your first words are always, “milk? Milk?” which is nice for both of us- we get to cuddle and I ask you questions and you always nod and say a very muffled “mmmhmm.” I love that you want that intimate time between us as soon as you see me. We’re reconnecting after many hours of being apart.

I watch you whenever I have a spare moment at work, as your day care has a webcam into your room, and I can see you sleeping on the cot or eating your snacks.

Speaking of sleeping. Ash, there’s not a lot that I feel guilty about as far as being a mother- I don’t feel that I’ve made many mistakes as far as the choices I’ve made regarding bringing you up this far. Except for this: I’ve swaddled you pretty much since you were born. It’s normal for younger babies, fresh out of the womb, to be swaddled because it gives them comfort and calms them down. You never grew out of that desire to be tightly wrapped up, so I never pushed you otherwise. That’s not saying that we haven’t tried; on many, many occasions I’d try to put you down without swaddling you (we used a piece of jersey fabric, reinforced with a bandana for the past year or so, since receiving blankets no longer fit around you), but your arms wouldn’t stop moving- you would lay there and nurse and nurse and flail and flail and you just couldn’t calm down. As soon as I wrapped you up (just your arms, not your legs), you’d be out- often without even needing to nurse again! So I went with it, even though I knew it wasn’t normal practice, even though it was embarrassing to admit or to let others see. I had your babysitters swaddle you for your naps before day care started. I never told your day care about the swaddling, because I didn’t want this to continue any longer. For the first week, the teacher had to walk you around and hold you until you fell asleep, I watched her on the webcam struggling with your 26-27 pounds and your flails, but eventually you’d pass out and she’d put you down on your cot and that’d be it.

It only took a week, Ash- and you were done with needing to be walked around to fall asleep and you were DONE with needing to be swaddled for naps and bedtime with us. PHEW!!!!!! We haven’t looked back, and I’ve even put away your swaddle blanket for safe keeping.

At the end of last month you could easily count to two, and at the end of this month you can count to eight perfectly… when you get to eight, you go back down to seven for some reason, but at least all of your numbers are there and in the right order- there’s no “1-2-5-6-4” here. I didn’t even know you COULD count until one morning when you said “one two” and then I said “two” and then you said “three” and then I repeated that number and then we followed that pattern until you reached “eight” and I hadn’t even ever heard you SAY the number eight before, but there it was- clear as day- right after seven. Your brains, kid, they never cease to amaze me. You pick up on things so amazingly fast.

You are learning new songs at school, you will say the missing words or letters that I leave out of the alphabet or books or songs when I say them to you. You’ve started saying “mmhmm!” and “okay” and you’re practicing with the way real sentences sound. You have a LOT of words, but your sentences are still fairly restricted to four or sometimes five words at once, so you’ll put a bunch of mumbled sounds before the real words so it resembles a full sentence but isn’t actually one. It’s pretty cute.

You’re still sleeping with us, and I have to admit that nursing and co-sleeping this long tend to be frowned upon by some people, but they’re two of my favorite things about being a parent. I find them especially important now that I’m working and I don’t see you as often. This is the first month that I’ve felt some pressure from people to get you off the boob (I know you’re cringing as an adult reading about BREASTFEEDING, OH MY GOD), but you’re not ready yet and neither am I. My goal has always been at least two years, and that’s still three months away. Anything more than that I’ll be happy with, but you’re not showing any signs of wanting to stop. Sleeping beside you, especially with your strong demands to “CUDDLE!” (as you say) is just wonderful. I know there will be some day that you will want to sleep in your own bed, in your own room, and I’m totally okay with that, but I will definitely miss you and so I cherish each night that you choose to stay beside me.

Night nursing has always been once every two hours, which a lot of moms raise their eyebrows at when I tell them while I’m working, but it’s never bothered me that much, and now that day care tires you out more than I was able to when I was home, there are some nights when you only wake once or twice! We are both getting a lot more uninterrupted sleep now, and I really appreciate that. So thanks.

On Mondays we go to the playground with friends of ours. You love going up the stairs and down the slides. This most recent Monday we met up with our friends Jessica (mom) and Frances (baby) and played for a while.

You found some buttercups and I asked if you wanted to give one to Frances. As we sat there in that grass I taught you about buttercups- that if you hold them up under someone’s chin, they shine yellow- which is supposed to mean that they like butter- the same way my mother taught me. It was an extremely special moment for me.

There’s nothing I wish for more than to be able to teach you EVERYTHING myself, every single day, but I’m happy that you’re thriving without me there all the time anyway. It does strike me as a bit odd when you come home singing a new song that I haven’t taught you, but I’m happy you’re learning that song however. For now, we have buttercups together, even if you don’t remember that sunny June day where you first heard their tall tale.

I know I say it every month, but you mean more to me than anything else in my entire life. Every day is the most amazing day until I go to sleep the next day and realize that THAT was the best day. You keep thing interesting and so full of love I sometimes can’t even believe it myself.

I love you so much.

Love,
Mama