21 months ... or, where the heck did the past 9 months go?!

Yep, that's right. Daphne is 21 months old today, meaning the last time I blogged about just her was shortly after she turned 1! I guess the main event of the past 9 months was her brief stint in daycare. As I mentioned in her one-year update, Daphne began the gradual transition to part-time daycare shortly after her birthday.

Painting at Eryn's house.

The transition went really smoothly. She was home sick quite a bit during those first five or six weeks, to be expected, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I remember with Elias, perhaps because her immune system had already been prepped by interacting with a bunch of preschoolers and then grade-schoolers nearly every day since she was 3 weeks old. Or perhaps we just got lucky. I'm sure preschool will be another shock to the immune system!

Home with one of many bugs those first few weeks of daycare.

At any rate, other than that, she made the transition really well. There were some tears, but even on the couple of days she cried at drop-off the report at least was that she calmed down within minutes of me leaving and remained pretty happy throughout the day. She bonded with Eryn, our daycare gal, much more quickly than Elias, running to her and gesturing for her to pick her up pretty early on.

Sitting with Eryn in the sandbox. Note "bear lovey", crucial to the successful daycare transition each day.

So it was a success! But it only lasted a few months. Long story short, work was slow to pick up and after about six months I decided, with Neal's full support, of course, to draw a line in the sand. When sales hadn't picked up by end of summer, I decided to pull Daphne from daycare and make the transition back to being a full-time stay-at-home mama. Of course, I'm not exactly contributing financially right now, which is a tricky thing in and of itself, but on top of slow sales, I was really stressing each month over the added cost of daycare. Until I can figure out this work thing, I might as well be the one to take care of the pre-pre-schooler!

Daphne's post-swim shenanigans.

In addition to the financial stress, there are a few reasons daycare is trickier the second time around. Yes, I could put Elias in after school care and extend my work days, but given that's not the case, his school day dictates our schedule, which doesn't really mesh well with typical daycare. I'd pick him up at 3 (or even earlier, at 1:20, on Oakland's "minimum days") and we'd have some time to kill, Daphne still likely napping at daycare, but not enough time to do anything too exciting that didn't involve sitting in killer rush-hour traffic on the way to get her closer to 5 (daycare closes at 5:30). And even picking her up at 4:30 or 4:45 or so would be way earlier than any of the other kids. Some days they'd still be having their afternoon snack when we arrived! Daycare is really designed for full-time working parents. Not only does it not really work well with an older kid's school schedule, you don't get much of a financial break for part-time. And if I have to choose between a full-time "real" job and spending TONS of time (maybe too much at times) with my kids right now, a little broke though we may be, I choose the latter.

Me and my crazy-makers.

And so far it's been a mixed bag, I won't lie. Keeping a toddler entertained every day is hard work. I'm so tired. All the time. My only breaks in a typical 14-15 hour day are during her nap (which I have to make sure begins by about 12:30 each day to ensure she's up - or well rested if woken up - by 2:30 pm so we can go fetch big brother from school) and after both kids are in bed and all the "chores" are done, by about 9 pm each night. By then I'm thoroughly beat. And naps are eaten up with all sorts of tedious day-to-day tasks like cleaning up after lunch, school stuff, packing up snacks and whatever we might need for the 3-5 shift with both kids, leaving little time for anything extra like "work", updating my blogs, working on crafty projects, or tackling that never-ending home improvement list. Don't even get me started on so-called "self care".

Too tall for her own good.

All that said, at the end of each day (yes, after she's asleep), in that small slice of time between the kids' bedtimes and mine, I'm still pretty satisfied with my decision. I just don't think I'd make a good working mama, at least not at this moment in my motherhood. And she'll be ready for preschool in a blink, you know? I just have to figure out how we're going to pay for it between now and then.