Hey gang. Guest post from my wife Stevie this weekend. The title is pretty self explanatory; so I will let her get to it. I’ll have a new post up on Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for reading!

Dad (John) 

6 Reasons that Sending My Infant to Daycare is Killing Me 

(And 3 Reasons I know I’ll Survive)

Captain went to daycare on Friday. I’m having a hard time with it. I took a few weeks off after he was born and started working full-time again around Christmas. I was able to do most of my work from home because he was just a squishy lump that slept all the time. Now that he’s starting to be awake more than asleep, it was hard to be in the room with that cute, smiley face and still stay focused on work. He’s just too kissable.

So we enrolled him in the same daycare that Duchess goes to. She’s pretty excited about it. Whenever I would bring him with me while dropping her off or picking her up, she would yell to anyone that was listening, “look! It’s my bru-dder! LOOK IT’S MY BRU-DERRR!!!”

So needless to say, she’s stoked about it. I, on the other hand, am having a harder time coping, for several reasons. So I will dip into John’s bag of lazy blogger tricks and make a list, outlining why this sucks, and why I’ll be OK.

First, the suck.

I want him to know me, not his teacher.

It’s a hard reality to accept, but Captain will be spending nearly twice as much time during the week with his teacher at the daycare than with me. I’m sure this is an irrational fear but how do I not jump to the conclusion that he will form a stronger bond with her than his mother? With Duchess, we were lucky enough that my mom watched her for the first TWO YEARS of her life. She went to daycare one day a week to be socialized and to give my mom a break. But otherwise, she got to hang out with my mom and her cousin all day. I’m ok with her forming a strong bond with my mom. They still have an amazing bond. But I don’t feel quite the same about his teacher.

I want him to be held.

I don’t want him to be just sitting in a corner by himself, being background noise to a classroom of screaming babies. I want someone to cuddle him and rock him and sing to him. Like I do. I want them to be all-up-in-his face with smiles and coos and made up words spoken three octaves too high.

I want to be there when he hits his milestones.

I was lucky enough to be there for his first smile, his first coo and the first time he rolled over from his stomach to his back. From here out, it’s a statistical improbability that I will be able to see the next few milestones. He will be spending more waking time during the day at school than with me. I think I’ll have a mental breakdown if I go pick him up from school and they tell me he took his first steps or said his first word.

I want to know every little thing that happens to him.

If he gets a bruise or a cut, if he spills something on himself, I want to know how/where/when/why. I don’t mean that in the over-bearing way where I am going to corner his poor, tiny teacher and shine a light in her face until she gives me an answer. I just want to know everything there is to know about my son.

I want to be able to nurse him when he’s hungry.

The most traumatic part of a baby’s day is when they are hungry. He knows nothing else at this point except “I’m hungry. Feed me now. I’m distraught”. Being able to give him exactly what he needs and calm him better than anything else in the world is an amazing feeling. And my breast pump just doesn’t seem to have the same appreciation for the boob. Also, it makes an annoying sound. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a breast pump before but to me it’s liken to listening to daleks yelling at you. #doctorwhoreference #hashtagsdontworkinblogs #ohwell

But most of all, I just want to hold my son.

And now, reasons why I’ll be ok…

I am aware that all the reasons above start with the word I

When it really comes down to it, he’s who matters in the equation, and I know (I really do know) that he is going to be fine. And that makes me feel a little better. Not much, but a little. He will make friends, and be around people other than mom and dad all the time. He will have structure to his day, which I’m told babies thrive on. He’ll get the attention that he needs and deserves that I can’t really give him while I’m working. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be fine. And so am I.

We love our daycare

I may have made it sound like I dropped him off under an overpass and said good luck. That’s not the case at all. We love our daycare. Duchess has been going there for a long time (first part time and then started going full time about a year ago). We love the teachers, we love the location and we love the building. The people there are more than capable of handling my son. There are only two other kids in his class and they are both walking. So he will be held. And actually, his first day of school has been so highly anticipated by the daycare staff that I doubt he’ll be put down all day. Seriously, every time I went to get the duchess, the whole staff wanted to see him and know when he was coming to play. Back off ladies, he’s mine.

Sweet sweet alone time!!

I’d be lying if I said that I’m not just a little bit excited to have some alone time. Here’s a text message I sent to John the other day.

Being a mom is awesome, wonderful, tiring and messy. I love all of it. I’m going to miss having my little Captain here with me more than I could ever describe, but I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to take a shower by myself – even if I’m crying during it.