a working mother's lament
we're going to hire a babysitter.
it was too difficult to watch two babies at once. not because anything went wrong. in fact, it went as well as it could have. both girls slept a lot and cried minimally and had fun play time on the mat. but it was heartbreaking to have to split my attentions between the two. elenora is so used to getting someone's full attention the entire day, so it was really hard to not be able to really invest all of my energies in her. when she was pleasant (the time when i usually interact with her a lot with animated voices and tummy time and playing) i had to leave her to tend to penelope (diapering, rocking, feeding). poor elenora ended up all by herself at the times when i am usually so engaging. i started thinking about the impact on her development that this would have--ten hours a day of getting part of someone's attention. it made me so sad.
it was too difficult to watch two babies at once. not because anything went wrong. in fact, it went as well as it could have. both girls slept a lot and cried minimally and had fun play time on the mat. but it was heartbreaking to have to split my attentions between the two. elenora is so used to getting someone's full attention the entire day, so it was really hard to not be able to really invest all of my energies in her. when she was pleasant (the time when i usually interact with her a lot with animated voices and tummy time and playing) i had to leave her to tend to penelope (diapering, rocking, feeding). poor elenora ended up all by herself at the times when i am usually so engaging. i started thinking about the impact on her development that this would have--ten hours a day of getting part of someone's attention. it made me so sad.
plus we had a january heat wave (fifties) but i couldn't take ella outside because i couldn't take them both. i started thinking about all of the activities ella would miss out on as the weather gets nice--trips to Russell Orchard to see the 1000 lb pig and the chickens, trips to crane beach in the summer, trips to Appleton Farm to see the cows, trips to rockport to see the ocean. how can i deprive my daughter of all these experiences?
i can't.
i talked with e. about it, and she understood as only a mother who tries to watch two children can. so we're going to hire a babysitter to watch both of the girls at my house for two days a week. splitting the cost of daycare makes it pretty inexpensive. mondays momB (who i will now start calling "saint grandma") will watch elenora, so that just leaves two days where i will have to drive ella over to e.'s house and then watch the two babies in the afternoons. that is definitely manageable.
i called l. to ask her if she knows any good babysitters. ironic, when you think that ten years ago i was a college kid watching her three children. makes me feel old.
we got the tanglewood flier in the mail two days ago. we're going to take elenora to see sarah chang play the Mendelssohn in July. i can't wait.
posted by bel @ 9:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home