Oh, Ergo, how I love thee

I have a new baby. (I know, I KNOW! I haven’t yet named the old new baby! I’m behind before I even start.) New New baby comes three days a week. After a week of so of visits, he has now begun his first week in Daycare. Mummy and Daddy are both back at work. This is the real deal now.

He’s not doing badly, all in all. In fact, he’s doing very well. The key to his adjustment? Unlike many newbies, he’s turning to me for comfort.

This, ladies and gentlemen? This. is HUGE.

Virtually all babies, for that first week or two, are sad and disoriented. They are in a strange environment (a week or two of visits does not make it familiar), and mummy and daddy, their sources of comfort and security, are nowhere to be seen.

No wonder they cry.

But until they view me as an alternate source of comfort and security, they are ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD!!!!

They are all alone, and VERY VERY LOUD.

Poor mites.

Now, this is normal. This is what I expect when I take on a new baby. (Remembering that babies, when they start with me, are a year old, well old enough to have expectations of the world. Expectations in which I most certainly do NOT figure. Expectations which I am, not to put too fine a point on it, royally forking up…)

But New New Baby is not that way. From the very first minute alone with me, he knew my purpose in his life. “OH! You WONDERFUL not-mama! You are HUMAN! You have ARMS! You can PICK ME UP AND HOLD ME TIGHT!!!”

And by tight, I mean tight. This boy clambers up my torso so as to bury his face in my neck, and clings like a little baby ape whose mummy is swinging through the tree-tops. It’s rather endearing. Sweaty, but endearing. The moment he has achieved full-body cling, the tears cease. Instantly, and for as long as he’s in my arms.

After a while of uber-clinging, he’ll sit back on my lap, start to take in his surroundings, and even make cheerful commentary on it.

“Dit! Dit, dah! Dah, dah, dah, dzat!” (‘D’ appears to be the consonant of the week.)

This, too, is very endearing.

However.

New, New Baby is a Big Big Boy. I don’t know his weight for sure, but I’m guessing a solid 14 or 15 kg (30 pounds). The boy is a TANK.

A cuddly, needy tank. Who wants — needs! — to be held all.the.time.

And so I say again, Ergo, how I love thee. I’m still sweaty, but I can move. I can interact with the others. And my home? Is howl-free.

I am a happy, albeit sweaty, woman.

Hello, goodbye

Malli and Nigel are graduating Mary’s house in September, on to greater educational adventures. I’m often asked how I feel when kids move on, and every time I wonder what response the questioner expects or desires to see: Mourning? Indifference? Agony? Wistfulness? Tears? Hopefulness? Like a piece of my life has crumbled away, never to return?

In truth, the answer is … all of the above, none of the above. Well, all except that last one. I’m quite sure that has never, ever happened.

Once in a while, a child leaves and my heart gives a little lift. My job becomes easier, my home a happier place, my job satisfaction goes up, up, up when that child heads out my door for the last time. That doesn’t happen often, but I’d be lying if I said it never did. Sometimes it’s the thought that I’ll be seeing a particular parent for the very last time that causes the lift to my spirits. That happens somewhat more often than with the children…

However, I’m a glass-half-full kind of person, in this as in most aspects of my life. I like change. I find new things inspiring and energizing. When a child moves on, I’m pleased to see them take their next step on their way, and excited for their newest venture. I will miss things along the way, but by then the next child will have arrived, with his/her needs, challenges, and laughter, and I will be too busy to spend any time pining. Such is my nature, and it certainly makes the job easier!

(And yes, I’m much the same way with my own children. I did not cry when my eldest left home; I consider my second child’s current hunt for an apartment with some pragmatic maternal worries, but no tearing pangs of abandonment. We’ll see how I do when my third, my ‘baby’, leaves the nest, but so far, so good!)

I am usually delighted to have a visit from a ‘graduate’, to see how much they’ve grown and developed in the intervening months/years.

So, Malli and Nigel are moving on, taking two sets of huge blue eyes, and, from one or the other, an impish sense of humour, a predilection for long, fanciful story-telling, a tendency to break unexpectedly out into dance … and an increasing urge to boss and/or tattle with them. Now that stuff is someone else’s problem! (See? It’s not all bad…)

And as they leave, Aiden and Noah arrive. Aiden is Emily’s baby brother, who’s been coming for two hours a week for some months now. A free service, this, for I view it as much a favour to myself as to his mother — our year-long maternity leave is a great thing for families, but has the tots being dropped into daycare well after separation anxiety has reared its troublesome head, which can make the first three weeks much more difficult than they were ten years ago, back when maternity leaves were only six months long.

So Aiden has been coming to see me, and a good thing, too! His first visit with me was not one I’ll soon forget: the boy has a scream that could shatter glass. It certainly came near to shattering my eardrums. Now, however, he transfers easily into my arms, and smiles bye-bye at mummy. It’s still likely that he’ll cry for some of his first days with me: eight hours is much longer than two — but at least he now recognizes me as someone who can provide comfort. It makes all the difference.

That leaves Noah as my total newbie. Noah, who signed up six months ago. I’d offered the opportunity of a weaning-in time (though, as I’ve discussed, I see this as primarily for the parents’ benefit, not the child’s), but since there was no further mention of it, I’d thought it wasn’t going to happen.

Wrong. An email this week informed me that Noah’s mother would like to have him attend on Thursday and Friday, for an hour or so. She believes it will help his transition … two and a half weeks from now, when he starts full-time. (The time gap because I will be taking those weeks off.)

It won’t make a smidge of difference, of course. Two hours spent with mommy while in the company of a stranger and some strange kids, then, two-plus weeks later, he’ll meet the stranger and her kids again, only this time mommy will leave. For eight or nine hours. For a 12-month-old, there is no relationship between these events at all, at all.

But, shhhh. We won’t tell mommy that. She’s leaving her baby with a stranger! Yes, we’ve met, we conversed at length. I made a good impression. She’s talked to my references, and they told her all manner of great things. She’s seen my home, she’s met my family. She’s signed a well-written, professional contract. She feels she’s made a good decision (and I agree!) but really? I’m still a stranger.

Her baby needs the transition? Perhaps. Mommy needs the reassurance? Definitely. Reassurance that she’s done all she can for her baby, that the other children in my care are happy, that I am what she thought when we met six months ago… and what does it cost me to provide it? Two hours of my time. I think I can manage that.