Thanks, The Universe!

     The world of parenting is changing at an extremely rapid pace.  My mother-in-law recently posted a Huffinton Post article that said "not that long ago and you could stick a toddler on the front lawn with just the dog watching and nobody would bat an eye at it."  I think this shows how drastically different what Grandma and Grandpa did is compared to what we're doing nowadays.  There's new child rearing methods, new technology and constantly changing medical advice.   All this is to say there is literally no way to know that what you're doing is right.  All you can do is follow your instincts.

     One of our first "instinct" issues that arose was daycare.  Both the wife and I have known that we would love to not have to put our daughter in daycare.  I realize that in this day and age daycare has become a fact of parenthood, but it wasn't something we were ready to accept.  Unfortunatley, there were several factors, mostly financial, that made daycare seem like a forgone conclusion.
 
     One of the things that I find amazing about my dear wife is that she seems able to will things into reality.  All she needs to do is want something hard enough and it seems the universe obliges her.  One night Kate and I were having the very difficult discussion about the reality that Amelia would be spending 5 days a week in daycare.  This lead us to thinking about all the wonderful things that there was a good chance we'd be missing.  First smile?  Probably at someone who wasn't us.  First laugh? At something other than her dad's silly face.  First steps?  Good chance that'd be in someone else's home.  I asked "What can I do?"  Through tears her answer was both heartbreaking and pragmatic "Let me be sad about this tonight," she said "and tomorrow I'll work on accepting it." The universe heard that and got to work.

     The following day my boss called me into his office.  We sat down and he informed me that they were looking at several ways of making our office more efficient.  One of the ways being discussed, he said, was shifting one of the part timers down to full time.  He knew that I'd expressed interest in spending some time at home once the baby arrived and was wondering if that was something I'd be interested in.  I sat down and in a very non-Mike display of forward thinking and planning.  I figured out numbers and budgets and saw exactly how we could make it work. 

 

     The excitement and relief that came when I told Kate about this new oppurtunity is what I like to refer to as "Husband Hero Moments".  I LIVE for these moments.  And with that it was now set that two and a half days out of the work week Amelia would be staying at home with me and the other two and a half she'd be at a very nice in-home daycare.  Is this the ideal situation?  No, but it is better.  And now we've just upped our odds of seeing that first smile, hearing that first laugh and watching that first step.  And if it happens at daycare, well, she'd better keep her trap shut about it.