Going to the Big D and I Don't Mean Dallas

So, Rocky starts his new job Monday.  Hurray and Huzzah and Hot Diggity!  He accepted an offer and then asked if he could start in two days.  That posed a minor problem.  You see, I don't believe babies are welcome at law firms, even cherubic, sweet-smelling, non-crawling types.

We were so lucky to find a great nanny in Virginia.  She was a mother of four children and had watched our neighbors kids for years.  Bennett blossomed in her care.  He had been a crazy fussy newborn and within just a few weeks became an easy-going social baby.  When we told her we were moving, she cried.  I cried.  I knew how difficult it would be to replace her.

Child care in Nashville is an entirely different ball game.  Your choices are basically in-home day care with four to six other kids and the babysitter is paid peanuts or a nanny with a price tag equivalent to in-state tuition.  Anytime I inquired about nanny shares with other mothers or even nanny placement companies they looked at me like I had two heads.

I really didn't want to send Bennett to a daycare center.  When I had toured the centers in DC, they smelled of bleach and poopy diapers.  Babies were lined up in bouncers and fed in an assembly line.  The older children went for walks on a leash through the busy downtown streets for playtime.

Thankfully, day care centers are a different ball game too.  We took a tour on Tuesday.  It didn't smell like bleach or dirty diapers.  Bennett sat down with one of the teachers and read books, studied the older kids intently and enjoyed the new toys.  When we slipped out to finish our tour, he was too happy and distracted to care.

But Bennett's been home with his dad for the past two months.  He's gone to the park and field trips to Target and long walks in our new neighborhood.  He napped in his own bed and his dad was there for him when he woke up.  He had one on one attention for months and soon he'll be surrounded by big kids and babies and there will be a new face rubbing his back when he wakes up crying.  He'll be put down when another kid cries.  He'll get colds and stomach viruses.

Those same anxious feelings I had when we started going to the nanny's are back.  Now, he's bigger and stronger.  But when I pick him up, he still can't tell me he bumped his head or another little boy was mean.  I just have to go with my gut that this is the right thing to do.