Joining the day care crowd

After two months and just two pitifully short blog updates, The Wife headed back to work this morning. For the next two weeks she’ll be working half-days, which is probably for the best since she’ll need to get back into the swing of things and wean herself from crappy daytime television gradually.

More importantly, today was The Girl’s first day (or half-day, whatever) at day care. Or from what I’ve read online, it’s the day we stopped raising our own child and let total strangers take over all parenting responsibilities.

The Wife, who visits parenting sites and reads their forums for some reason, has pointed out to me some of the virulent diatribes from certain stay at home parents on the subject in the past. I can’t argue that if we could afford it, I would rather that one of us be able to stay at home with our children. (It would have to be me – The Wife goes stir crazy after a while.)

But the fact of the matter is that we can’t afford it. I’m not a wealthy industry baron, we don’t live in a sitcom and this isn’t the 1950s. Like just about everybody else, it takes both of our incomes to make ends meet. That’s just the way it is.

I had a hard time when we sent The Boy to day care for the first time. He was about a year old I guess. For some reason, it wasn’t nearly as difficult this morning with The Girl, even though she’s much younger than he was. I think that’s because we already have four years of day care under our belts now and a year of particularly great experiences with our current place. I’m not worried that someone else is taking our place as parents. And I’m not worried that other people might think that either.

(But if someone wants to personally fund my staying at home full-time, I’ll listen.)

Anyway, The Girl had a great day. She enjoyed two bottles, had a pair of diapers changed and worked in a two-hour nap. Not bad for a half-day of work.

Fries at the bottom of the bag

• I’ve missed a lot of stuff over the past few weeks, but I’ll try to catch up on the highlights over the next couple of posts (maybe).
• Apparently I didn’t mention Valentine’s Day at all. That’s probably because when you’ve been married for nearly seven years and have two little ones, it ranks somewhere between Boxing Day and Lincoln’s Birthday in terms of relevance. But here’s an obligatory photo of The Boy addressing valentines to his little classmates.
• I’m writing tonight on my new laptop! It’s shameful that someone who does what I do for a living hasn’t had a laptop before. I can finally stop hiding in the shadows at tech events.
• The Boy gets a prize at school on Fridays if he’s been good all week and this week he picked a purple hairband out of the prize box. I was thrilled, especially when he chose to wear it out in the public the next day.
• The Girl likes to help out in the kitchen, as well as having people talk to her in silly voices. She’s also recently noticed the television and seems to be okay with watching baseball.
• I didn’t blog on Friday and therefore missed my chance to have a post dated February 29th. Now I’ll have to wait another four years. Oh well, I guess it gives me a reason is keep going.
• I received an “exclusive invitation” (solicitation) to join The Handyman Club of America today in the mail. Despite the extremely nice plastic drill bit sizer they included as a free gift, I had to decline their offer. It’s good to know, however, that my mad handyman skills are finally getting the respect they deserve.
• Now that February is over, the photo gallery is complete.