Grateful.

I have three posts started and not finished, which makes me twitchy. I imagine some people work ("work") that way all the time but I'm more of a start-a-task-and-finish-it person. Ideally.

But!

Instead of finishing any of them, I'm going to write about something else entirely!

I'm taking a quick pumping break from work and I was just thinking about how grateful I am that my kids are doing so well at their new daycare. When Declan was about a week old, we got the devastating news that our old daycare provider, Stephanie, who had cared for Keira since she was three months old, was closing down on the last Friday of March. It's a long story that amounts to the county regulating her out of business -- and I had best leave it at that or else I'm apt to go on a LONG rant about the evils of big government -- but I lost it a little bit at hearing the news.

If you've ever been a working mother, you know what it's like, adjusting to the idea that someone else is going to be responsible for your sweet baby eight-to-ten hours a day. It's really, really hard. No one else is capable of loving them like you do, even if there are plenty of people capable of keeping them safe and fed. It gets easier over time, committing them to someone else's care, but the beginning is the worst.

I had been through it once and I was counting on it being easier with Declan, since Stephanie had done such a wonderful job with Keira.

So finding out that Stephanie couldn't do it anymore was a real blow. It didn't help that I heard about it 9 days postpartum when my hormones were a-ragin'. I cried and cried. Then I put off finding new care for way too long. We did the math -- might it be better if I quit my job and stayed home with the kids? Could we afford healthcare and the loss of my salary? -- and eventually realized that I had to keep my job. In the meantime, a couple of the other daycare moms had found another in-home daycare, in Stephanie's same daycare, which had room for more kids and was significantly less expensive to boot. We went to interview Subhadra, and although I had some reservations (not least that she told us that some of her current kids call her "Mom," which I did. not. want.) we decided to enroll our kids with her along with Keira's friends Reagan and Jackson.

They started with her on Monday. Michael has been handling drop-off, and I was so, so relieved that I wasn't going to have to be party to the total meltdown I expected Keira to have as she was left with a stranger. Then Michael called and said that drop-off had been great -- Keira was excited to see her friends and she sent him off with a kiss and a "Bye, Daddy!" and he gave me the good news that the kids were going to be calling the new nanny Subu. (Thank goodness!)

Every other morning this week, my not-a-morning-person toddler has woken up and said, "I going to Subu's house!" She's having a wonderful time there. The baby is eating and sleeping well. They're safe and happy. And I'm so grateful they have a wonderful place to be.

Thanks be to God.