T minus one week

A week from today is Bobby's first day at preschool. To say I'm gleefully anticipating it is an understatement. It doesn't mean I don't love him and don't want to spend time with him. It does mean toddlers are frigging hard, I'm ill-equipped, and I'm excited to see how he'll blossom in a structured, fun environment. I do think my particular circumstances call out for early preschool - not having a partner to give me regular (free) breaks, not having a job to get me out of the house, and not being suited to being the full-time caretaker of small children (I would rather clean septic tanks for a living than be a nanny to someone else's toddler). It's just me & him & baby all alone, all of the time. Even having two afternoons "off" a week is going to make such a difference. I will celebrate the first day by heading off to mommy & me yoga, something I have not been able to enjoy since before B was mobile, which seems like a million years ago.

I'm glad for the last month or so as I've taken him every Saturday, he has grown accustomed to the place again (when he transitioned to the preschool area from the baby area, it was kind of rough on him). He never cries or clings to me when I leave him now, which is a good feeling. Even better is when I go to pick him up and he runs and hugs me. That's pretty awesome.

I bought him one of those cute owl back packs and put his name on it with a laundry pen. I'm so excited to pack his little lunches in the cute Japanese lunchbox where years ago I kept condoms. Full circle, ya know?

The advent of preschool is coming not a moment too early. My parenting has kind of sucked lately. Freaked out by various unpleasant playground incidents (and now that school is out, every public place is lousy with big kids running rampant - ugh!), exhausted from three months of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and just fed up in general, I have resorted more and more to television and driving around for hours all day, both things I'm not at all proud of. 

I've also been spending a small fortune at the Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and Baskin Robbins drive thrus. All of this is not at all like me. I'm so much better than this. But right now it's kind of the best I can do.

I tried out a new sitter last night that I got from urbansitter. So, a total stranger and not recommended by a friend, which did stress me out a bit. But with my main sitter now married and no doubt planning a family of her own soon, and my two backup sitters pretty much always unavailable these days, it was time to branch out. This gal was very sweet and handled Theo's wake up for milk around midnight really well (yes, I treated myself to a rare night out dancing, so I could come right home in case there was a problem), so hopefully having a new, close by sitter will allow me a bit more spontaneity. 

I spent a bizarre couple of days with a horrible crick in my neck and the fun of something called "tonsil stones" (chunks of calcification that lodge in the back of your throat and feel like tiny hailstones) but thankfully both of these things have resolved themselves. Bobby has a horrible bloody diaper rash that I have been trying to resolve first with Butt Paste and now with maximum strength Desitin, all to no avail. Theo seems to puke up about 300% more fluid than he consumes. But other than that, we're all good.