daycare & the birds and the bees

Well, Allison loves daycare, or as she calls it "Gammy cool" (cool is school). When I pick her up in the afternoon she is excited to see me, but not pulling me out the door. She squeals, comes running over to me for a hug, then wiggles down to continue doing whatever she was doing. We have had art projects sent home each day (she goes 2X per week) and Grammy says that she loves following along with whatever the kids are doing. She has eaten well, played well and even napped well. All that worry for naught. What a relief. It's all about perspective, I guess. Now I'm glad that she gets to spend play days with all of her friends.

And to follow up on the birds & bees talk with my son. Hmmmm, where to start. First, I got some books (see post below) and I don't think I'm ready to share them with my first grader. (If only I wasn't having trouble uploading pics onto my computer, I'd share the page, from the book listed below, with the cartoon image of a man and woman fooling around under the sheets.) That book is now sitting on a high shelf - he does not need that visual, at this age.

So, not sure how to approach the subject, I decided to reassess what Brent was really asking when wanting to know how he got into my belly, why he looks like Dad, and where his bones came from. I told him that babies grow inside of mommies - they start out as eggs, that are so small they can only be seen with a microscope. I shared some pictures from an anatomy book that had what a fetus looks like at different stages and he was satisfied with that. He was excited, as if he had a new discovery, well, I guess he did.

I'm not sure if I should've went into more detail with my son, but my philosophy is to give honest information, but no more than they are really needing and/or wanting to know. Not to mention, my son is just shy of seven and he isn't at an age where I could expect him to not share a big discovery with his peers. So, I feel a sense of responsibility that my son doesn't repeat something, regardless of how innocently, to other people's children. That could be ugly, not to mention wrong. (Like my homeschooling neighbor family, of seven kids, who just love to share with other neighborhood kids how Santa isn't real and that Christmas is only for celebrating Jesus. That's a post in itself. Grrrrr.) He will eventually hear the whole story of conception when he gets older. From. His. Dad.

Me, at a loss for words?

Yep, I'm at a loss, and I need help finding the right words. Brent has started asking questions about how babies are made and he's not being satisfied with my old explanation that we prayed to God for a baby and he grew inside my belly. This wasn't a lie - I did call Scott God that night. JUST KIDDING! In the right environment, I can curse like a truck driver, but I can't even use correct anatomical words for private parts. I use such words as pee-pee, privates and tush. I know I'm a grown woman and I should get over this hang-up, but it's just not going to happen.

Anyhoo, he's really asking details. He even wants to know how come he looks like Dad if he grew in my belly. Oh Lord, what the heck do I say? I don't have any intention of going into the detail about the 'horizontal mombo', but I'm not sure how much to tell him. I don't want to lie. I just don't want to give him more information that he needs to know or more than what would satisfy his curiousity. If that makes sense.

So, as lame as it sounds, I've ordered some books from the library. Here's one:


Any suggestions?

More Mommy guilt...

Two years ago I decided that I either wanted/needed to get a part-time job, or go to back to school. Ideally I wanted return to work part-time when both kids were in all day school; however, two years ago there was a lay-off threat at Scott's work & it kicked me in the ass. So, I decided to pursue a career in nursing. I took the Nurse Entrance Test (like SATs for nursing programs) and started to apply to several programs. After interviewing and getting accepted, Scott secured another position within his company. Although the job scare was gone, I decided to forge ahead anyway since nursing programs are very competitive and I was thankful to have secured a seat in my school of choice. I've spent the past two years chipping away at the pre-requisite science classes, and nursing school seemed like light years away, but now it's here - it/I started three weeks ago. The pace was insane at first, but it's starting to level out. Thank God.

For the past three weeks Scott and other family members have taken care of the kids while I was at school. Brent is now in school all day and next week Allison starts daycare. This semester Allison will only need to be in childcare 4 to 5 days per month, but I'm still sick about it. I've never used chidcare for Brent and I feel so guilty not being a full-time SAHM for Allison. By no means do I think that being a SAHM is better than being a working mom (or in my case student mom, SM) - I was raised by a single mother who worked her arse off - and I intend on working once part-time when I'm done school. It's just hard. And different.

We will be using a home-based child care program. Her daycare provider has been running a licensed daycare out of her home for 10+ years and she comes highly recommended. She is in her late 50s and has grandchildren, so the kids all call her Grammy, which I find sweet. She runs her program as a preschool and even has the two year olds participate on their level. Allison will going to school with our neighbors’ daughter, who she likes to play with. Grammy also took care of a little girl from China for four years until she started school this year and she will start taking care of her little sister, who was adopted from China this past year - so we're thrilled about that, since IA is somewhat of a rarity in our area.

We have visited her daycare a few times to let her play with the other kids and to familiarize her with the place and she seems to love it. Allison doesn't cling to my leg when we visit and then she doesn't want to leave. Thank God she seems to love the place - that's the only thing that allows me to sleep at night. (on a side note: I get insomnia when I'm stressed or worried - so next week, there will no rest for the weary at my house. I'll probably be reading blogs in the middle of the night.)

I keep telling myself that it's like anything new - the anticipation is probably much worse than the actual thing/day/event, whatever. Maybe if I tell myself enough, I'll start to believe it.

So, advice and/or words of wisdom to help me deal with the guilt are welcome (Especially from those parents who have BTDT).