Divine Intervention!!! You gotta believe!!!

Okay...so I'm sure most of you know based on my previous whining in posts that today was set to be Riley's 1st day of day care! A very sad day in the Sterne household! I had even been thinking about doing a post last night called 'Preparing for Day Care' to chronicle how I was having to go shopping to double everything, label everything I was taking, the usual stuff. But also how I had cleaned Riley's room and our house procrastinating on doing the 'actual' preparing because I didn't want to! I was acting like I used to in college where I'd have to clean my entire apartment before I could study or work on a paper! ;) Just a more 'functional' version of a dysfunctional habit called procrastination! Like I've said before, I can rationalize ANYTHING if you give me enough time!

But my procrastination is not the point of this post! So I messaged my work husband Jason (It's fine! Kelly knows and loves him too!) early yesterday asking him to ask his wife, Emily, if she had any pointers for me on day care because today was Riley's 1st day! At 6pm, I'm making my run to Babies R Us to stock up on the things I needed! OMG! Sorry 2 second tangent here - that's another thing! Babies R Us is now my new Wal-Mart & Target! You know how you run to Wal-Mart or Target for ONE or TWO things, then you NEVER leave there without spending $100 bucks! Then as you're driving out of the parking lot you remember 2 things you were supposed to get, but forgot to put them on your ever-so-thoughtful list?! Well Babies R Us has taken the place of Wal-Mart and Target for me in that regard! ugh!

Anyway, while I was at Babies R Us Jason texts me back saying Emily said to label EVERYTHING - socks, paci, clothes, bottles, blankets, etc. And to call as often as I needed to in order to see how he's doing, and write down his schedule if he has one - you all know the answer to that one! ;) To write down what he likes/doesn't like/etc. And that I could call her anytime because she knows the ins and outs. Which was why I messaged in the 1st place - Emily has worked at a different Primrose location (where Riley was going) for a year and a half, another day care for a while before that, AND she was a Montessori school teacher, AND she's studied child development to be a teacher, AND she was one of the people that told me to read Baby Wise and just do it! when I got pregnant, AND ...... you get the picture and understand why I was asking her advice!

Then Jason's next message says AND she says she'll be your personal nanny and infant teacher and could even run some errands, etc. I replied telling him not to kid with me right now because I'd probably pay her double what I was going to pay Primrose to keep from having to drop Riley off with strangers tomorrow! And that I had already had 3 meltdowns about this in the past week, so I was not mentally or emotionally stable enough for him to be kidding with me about this! He said she was serious, but he didn't want to be the middle man so I needed to call her to discuss it. I said I'd call her as soon as I got home from the grocery store.

You can probably see where this is going now....I literally called Emily at 8:45pm last night to seriously discuss this alternative and if it would work for both of us! And it DID!!!!!! She came and started this am so I never even had to take Riley to day care!!! Can you believe that?! I'm sorry, but the ONLY explanation I can accept is divine intervention on this one!!! I've been praying for God to give me the strength to not be a total basket case when Kelly and I took Riley, and I guess he decided that wasn't possible so he'd give me a different answer, but not without making me sweat until the last possible moment! I swear I can't tell you how many times I looked at Kelly last week and said - I don't know how I'm going to do it!!!

My load has been lifted!! I was actually able to work and not stress about him being with strangers or ignored!! AND I didn't have to take him out in the freezing rain this morning and evening!!! AND he didn't have to get exposed to mutant day care germs!! AND did I mention he didn't have to be dropped off with strangers and be 1 of 4 infants a person has to attend to?!?! Considering he's been getting 2 or 3 to 1 attention from me, Kelly and my Mom since he was born! So going from 2/3 to 1 to 1 to 4 would have been a BIG adjustment! Let alone the fact that- have I mentioned this - they would be strangers!

So as you can see....my day/week/month/year/life have been made by this 11th hour luck text message I sent asking Jason to ask Emily for advice!! Just goes to show...there's no stupid question...and you never know where a life blessing like this will come from! You just gotta have faith!!

Oh yeah! And Emily taught baby signing at Primrose, so we're gonna do that too!! Yippee! You know me...I'm all about communication!! So stay tuned to see how things workout with our new child care situation!!! I'm SOOOOOO happy in case you couldn't tell! I had looked into the option of a Nanny, but they all wanted us to commit to a minimum number of hours per week, and we didn't want to have to do that since Kelly gets off pretty early some days. We had already come up with a strategy on how we could minimize Riley's hours at day care each day, so now it's all come together with Emily!! She was the missing piece to our puzzle all along!

For 1 millisecond I felt bad about calling Primrose the morning that Riley was supposed to arrive, but the director actually said they get this call a lot on the 1st day or after the 1st couple of days or weeks! That's why they make you give a deposit ahead of time to cover a few days just in case. That's a deposit I will gladly donate at this point! Plus, I had been on the waiting list since last MARCH! So I don't think they'll have any issue filling the position! Hopefully, it helped another family out that was having to make temporary alternative arrangements!

I'll just say one more time divine intervention! Thank you God!

Okay, so this is absolutely my FAVORITE picture of Riley, and I realized I haven't included it on the blog so I thought I would today. This is from the photo session where my friend Doug came to our house to take pictures. I think that's the reason it totally captures the Smoochie Kelly and I hang out with every day because Doug was at our house so Riley was in his own element! These funny faces he makes and how he looks into your soul and makes your heart smile! See.....how on earth could I possibly leave this baby with strangers right now?!


Our Smoochie....bubbles and all! OMG! I seriously could not love this boy 1 iota more!! Just in case you were wondering! :)

I'm Sorry!

I had to at least post a quick apology to all my loyal blog followers! I know you're out there because it surprises me all the time how many different people tell me they read the blog all the time when I see them in person! I'm hoping that you all have been just as busy as we have with the holidays, so you haven't really noticed that I've been slacking!

First, I have to make a quick comment on my last post - can you tell Kelly dressed Riley that day? OMG! Those knee length white socks with a onesie! I had visions of the things I may pick Riley up wearing at day care if there's ever a morning that Kelly gets him ready alone! Kelly himself thinks all shade of green match no matter what, so I can only imagine what 'baby rules' on matching he can come up with! I on the other hand get frustrated trying to match bibs to outfits for those that don't come with matching bibs!

My December return to work went ok. It wasn't too difficult to leave Riley because he was with my Mom or Kelly so it was more like leaving him for a day of rule breaking with GiGi or Dad. And since they've both spent so much time with Riley and adhering to Mommy's scheduling - it's pretty seemless! Plus, it was slow at work because so many people take the remainder of their vacation in December so that helped with me trying to transition back into the grind.

However, I called the day care last week, and they finally said Riley can start next Monday, January 5th. I seriously had a panic attack when the director said that. She even asked 'Is that date going to work for you?'. I finally swallowed the lump in my throat and muttled a 'Yes'. Then I immediately called Kelly and told him I'm not sure I can do it!! I compared the feeling to having a child - you can't imagine having a child right now, but you can't imagine your life without a child down the line. So I can't fathom how I'm going to drop Riley off at day care next Monday, but I can't really see me being a stay at home Mom either! I know once he's a little older and has friends there - it'll hopefully get a little easier! I've decided Kelly is going to have drop off duty! I just can't do it yet! We'll go together the 1st few days because of course I don't trust Kelly to remember every anal retentive detail I'm sure I'll wear them out with, but after that Daddy is gonna have to drop off until Mommy adjusts! I figure picking up will be easier especially in the coming months when he'll be happy to see us! But we've already decided Kelly will pick him up when he gets off because he gets off pretty early most days so as to limit the time he has to spend there. Right now he takes 2 2 hour naps a day, so I've already rationalized that he'll be sleeping 4 hours of his stay there.

Okay, so as you can probably tell - this is the predominant thing on my mind these days! I even had a meltdown just looking at all the paperwork I have to fill out to take on his 1st day! We just have to get over this initial hump then it may not get any easier, but I'll adjust! I do dread the "clingy" stage when he actually begs you not to leave him - that'll be another time when Kelly has to take over drop offs!

Obviously, the other big thing in the last couple of weeks was Riley's 1st Christmas. I'll try to do a quick post on that later this week if I can. Right now I have to stop blogging and clean my house! It looks like a 5 month old lives here!! Actually, it looks like about 5 5 month olds live here! And 2 lazy adults that are trying to spend every moment with their 5 month old before he becomes a big boy and goes to school next week! :(

Oh yeah - Happy New Year to you and yours!! I remember thinking how cool it would be when it was 1999!! I can't believe that was already 10 years and a lifetime ago!!