Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen...

the baby has left the building!

That's right: at the ripe old age of 2 years, 3 months and 1 week, with a backhand wave and a "Bye-bye office, see you later!" the Working Baby has graduated to bigger and better things, leaving behind her baskets of beads and books and puzzles and bucket of pens and highlighters (such a great toy, until she learned how to open them and write all over herself and other things...) for the fun, fun world of preschool/daycare, where there's all that and more.

Like a real sliding board, not one made from a tipped-over folding chair.

I'll spare you the details about how finding her a place in a preschool/daycare occupied the better part of my spring and summer--no doubt someone out there has a whole blog devoted to that whole insanity. Let us all simply direct a few mean thoughts in the direction of the Waldorf School and acknowledge what I should have realized in the first place about it, namely that there's no such thing as "charming disorganization."

Anyway, many frantic phone calls and a few crying fits later, we finally got a spot. True, not at the Waldorf School, where "speaking beautifully" is a priority, but somewhere perfectly adequate. She'll go three days a week for 10 - 2 preschool followed by 2 - 5 daycare--all for the low, low price of just under $7 grand for the year. Or, expressed according to the Office Mom's personal economic system, a little less than half of all the money I'll make if I work for every single one of those hours. Before taxes.

Yay, Dad, Esq., for making enough money to make all this possible. Boo, hiss, Dad. Esq., for catapulting us into the highest tax bracket, which means that I'm working three days a week now basically to cover the cost of the coffee I'll buy on the way in to the office. God, how depressing is that?

Oh right: I forgot! And this whole setup lets me keep working at my job, which mostly I really do love. Not to mention that although the Baby Formerly Known as the Working Baby is a lot of fun to hang out with, I would have long ago killed her if we were spending all day every day together alone. True, we have not yet gone to see the dinosaurs at the museum, and that would probably be fun. But every day? Even once a week? Can you imagine? Or am I just sadly lacking in imagination, that I can't figure out what I would do to keep us both amused without work to fall back on?

Anyway, Day 4 of the week goes to Nana, who costs nothing. (At least, not in dollars.)

And Day 5--well, that's a good question. For now, the plan is to, um, go see the dinosaurs and other fun stuff like that--a last flurry of mother-daughter bonding in the 6 weeks (!!!) before Working Baby 2.0 makes her entrance.

Because as nice as it was to go to work alone today, truth to tell, the walk from the car was a little dull. Not to get all codependent with my toddler--because that's icky--but it does feel a little like I'm losing my best friend.

(I know: Poor, poor me.)

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