Journal

This week Eilis went back to work. She’ll be working Wednesday, Thursday & Friday from herein.

Grandma and grandpa are on duty Wednesdays.

Thursday & Friday is childcare.

For all our ideological mumbo-jumbo about community based childcare, the ones we visited in our area before Christmas weren’t as good as the private centres. For babies, anyway. The community based centres seem better for bigger kids.

So we’ve had two full days of childcare and so far the staff have described Drew as “unsettled” but generally OK. I’m doing the pick-ups at the end of the day, and when I arrive she hasn’t been screaming. That’s reassuring.

Our mornings are now pretty full-on. We both get up around 6am and tag-team until it’s time for Eilis to drop Drew off. Then I go to work early and sit in the dark until reception starts and they turn on the lights. (Makes mental note to hunt down the light switch next Thursday). I pick her up about 4.15pm and then she yells at me for the next hour and a bit for abandoning her. Then we cook, feed the baby, wash the baby and put her to bed and then by 7.30pm we die on the couch.

I’m looking forward to Monday so I can sleep in until 7am.

One good thing about childcare that I hadn’t really thought about, particularly the centres in our area, is that not all the kids will be anglo. When I picked Drew up Friday there was an Asian babies and two African babies - she was the only white baby. I think that’s pretty great.

There was one akward moment (for me) on Friday when the afternoon childcare worker said, “So are you her mum?” and I hesitated and then said, “I’m one of two.” Maybe I had an un-mother like response to the story about Drew and the runny-poo? Which rhymes. I hope when she gets to primary school the other kids don’t figure that out.

So far, it’s ok.

Tags: drewcifer, fambly //