Today the bug spent her first day at daycare, well, half day to be exact. She’ll spend a half day there tomorrow too, before moving on to full days later in the week.

I didn’t get much sleep last night because I am feeling the real anxiety that mom’s feel when something changes in their lives that ultimately affects their child too. The change I’m talking about here is the one from staying at home full-time with their little one to working outside of the home for eight hours a day, five days per week.

I must say, Hails did look extremely cute in her Zutano top and Vincent shoes, wearing her Hello Kitty backpack with her Olive Kid’s name tag hanging from it this morning. “Wolf”, a gift from AnJuuuanne (Aunt Joanne), would attend her first day of school with her.

We’ve been talking a lot about daycare school lately but it’s obvious that when the day finally arrived, there was some confusion. I told her exactly what I’d be doing after I dropped her off. I also told her that I would be back to pick her up. When we pulled into the parking lot of the daycare, I heard a little voice coming from the backseat. The little voice said, “Mommy, I come wif you?” (Violently shove heart into throat here.)

After we checked in, we headed for her room where some of the other kids had already arrived. Everything seemed cool until she heard me announce that I would be back in a bit. I’m not a big fan of leaving unannounced. Again, she wanted to come “wif” me. How bad did I just want to pick her up and run out of there? More than you know.

I talk to many people and many people say, “She’ll be just fine.” I think that they and maybe I am missing the issue at hand here. The issue is, will I be fine? I do know that ultimately, she will enjoy hanging out at daycare because it’s not much different than hanging out at home, minus the super fun mommy, of course. But I love spending my days with her. I feel like some think that there is no more “I” when you become a mommy. I am hurting right now because I will miss her during the day. This is something that I will have to get used to and it will take longer for me to get used to it than her for the most part. She will become accustomed to her days because she will know nothing different. She plays, this is her thing right now. I on the other hand, will know that all I really want is to be her sole caretaker and teacher until she is school-aged, when it won’t be so hard for her to understand that I will come back for her. You know, when she is at an age where she will anticipate spending time with her friends and being independent. That’s the difference here. She doesn’t know any better but I do. I almost feel like what people are really saying when they say, “She’ll get used to it” is “Suck it up, mama”. Without knowing it, I do the same thing in other scenarios. I can’t express to you how I felt when I arrived to pick her up today and I saw her sitting at that little table having lunch with all of the other kids. I wasn’t thinking happy, feel-good thoughts.

Wow, how tough is parenting*? I am filled with so many emotions that I never realized I would have. My heart is being tugged in many different directions. That all being said though, of course I’m looking forward to my new employment opportunity. I’ve been given a chance to put “me” back into the picture after everything has been about “her” for the past two and a half years. I do also think about how I want her to look at me as a role model. I do want her to know that you can do whatever you put your mind to, if given the chance.

So while I wallow in my own self-pity and worry about trusting her in someone else’s care everyday, I hope I’m making a positive difference in her life, as well as ours. I hope our days do get easier. “Our” days. I hope we, the parents who are in the picture here, can get into this new routine and over this hump-of-a-new-beginning with flying colors. Today was rough. Tomorrow is going to be rough. Hopefully by next week, things all start to fall into a “happy” place.

*Just a note…I just realized what a great form of birth control mom blogs are!