School Daze

If you read this blog often you know that Sam and Jake commute with me to day care every day. When I was pregnant with Sam and started visiting day cares, I only looked near my office. I figured it had to be close by so I could go over every day and eat lunch with my child. It made frequent fawning and swooning convenient. Although it was good if the school needed me or someone got sick, there were very few lunch visits and only a handful of stops to fawn and swoon.

So several months ago when we found out we were expecting again and realized we could not go the private school route, we decided to enroll our kids in our church day care. It was closer to our house, closer to Bryon's office, and if I was going to be home on maternity leave, it would be much easier than driving 50 miles roundtrip for day care.

There were a lot of other advantages, in that we really like our church and thought this would be a way to get more involved, meet more families. Plus, one thing we never considered when we chose our day care so far from our house is that those are the kids your kids become friends with. Those are the kids whose birthday parties you'll want to attend, whose houses you'll visit for playdates. And while we made great friends at day care, everyone there seemed to assume we lived right around the corner as they did.

And just as we were debating the decision to stay or go, things started unraveling at our day care. A few favorite teachers were fired or left under suspicious circumstances, Sam unexpectedly transitioned to a classroom with much older kids, Jake's favorite teacher switched classrooms. The timing seemed right so we forged ahead.

A few weeks ago we received word that there were spots for both Sam and Jake beginning August 14. We began preparing them and visiting the rooms after Sunday School. We got our paperwork and immunization records together, bought back-up clothes for their cubbies. And last Friday I made a hysterical tour of our old school, saying goodbye to some teachers we'd really loved and would miss.

All this to say that today I drove to work without my guys. The drop off this morning was deceptively easy and my commute was unpleasantly quiet. I found myself censoring the radio and looking in the rearview mirror a lot. Although our commute was unnecessarily long, sometimes 45 minutes to an hour, and sometimes agonizing, it was time we spent together. I'll miss the giggling from the backseat. I'll miss their presence.