He Has Survived
By all accounts Dash has survived week one of day care. I have no good excuse to quit my job and run into the daycare screaming “NOT WITHOUT MY SON!” in my best Southern drawl. There is no good reason for me to feel guilty while I’m at work helping kids with research papers, and he’s not crying all day without me.
Today when we left, his friend and neighbor — a darling little blond girl — banged on the glass and yelled “HEY DASCHEL SEE YOU LATER!” and he waved goodbye and blew her a kiss.
HE BLEW HER A KISS.
I don’t think he has blown me a kiss since he was like 15 months old. Apparently Mom is good for only a handful of things, the most valuable being tampons, Goldfish and non-washable crayons (the washable ones just don’t cut it, didn’t you know?).
One amazing thing about the day care is that he comes home really tired, and goes to bed at a decent time. Finally I don’t have to stay up all night waiting for him to get tired - he actually goes to bed before I pass out from exhaustion, leaving him to his own devices (stoves, bleach, the usual ^__^).
Last night we we sitting together in Mike’s and my bed watching Access Hollywood (he’s the future of America, folks, do you think I’d settle for Inside Edition dubbed in German?) and I realized he had fallen asleep laying on my tummy. He hasn’t done that since he was an infant. Laying with me just doesn’t calm him down, usually he has to be alone and segregated to really calm down and get ready for bed.
He was so adorable, snoring on my stomach, I couldn’t move him. I had to pee like a racehorse, and my spider bite had acquired it’s own pulse, but I just sat there and let him sleep, touching his hair every once in while to remind myself of the calmness. Those of us with two year olds (or toddlers in general) know how rare these moments are. You spend a year waiting for them to GET UP AND WALK GODDAMNIT I’M SICK OF BEING MISTAKEN FOR A MOTHER KANGAROO and months later you’re weeping because they don’t need you anymore, and walk off without you in large, crowded supermarkets.
Just having him there, still, snoring and all, reminded me of day one in the hospital, and how amazed I was. I was just totally overwhelmed by the fact that HELLO I AM NOT PREGNANT and that being that was in my stomach is here, and has red hair, and a birthmark on his leg, and little hands that clench when he sleeps…I was in shock for days.
That last day of shock was the best - because the next day I realized HOLY SHIT I AM NOT PREGNANT AND OMG THAT THING IN MY STOMACH IS HERE AND I AM A PARENT etc. and that realization played over and over in my head for weeks, like a bad acid trip only worse, because it was real. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.
Last night I remembered that there is a huge payoff to being that scared, and his name is Daschel Auden.
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