Daycare Troubleshooting

As I've said before, the scariest and most emotionally trying aspect to returning to work is leaving ND in someone else's care. Today something happened that I think will help tremendously.

I had her signed up for a center that is fairly close to where I live. But today I found out that I have permission to transfer to another branch. Then I discovered that there is a branch less than 2 miles from where I work!

I visited today. It's smaller than the other one and I felt much more comfortable visiting. There are only 3 infants in the infant room right now, and the center was very flexible with me. I can decide a number of things at the last minute with them if I need to.

This makes a tremendous difference to me.

1. She will just be closer to me which means I won't have to suffer a 15-minute or longer drive in agony as I work through my guilt and miss her so painfully, and I know I can be there within a matter of minutes if she really needs me.

2. It means there will be fewer hours ultimately that she will have to be there because I can subtract that extra travel time from our contract now.

3. It also means fewer hours because now I can pick her up right away and take her with me on errands. Before I had imagined either paying for more time while I run errands, or running all the way home to get her and then heading out again.

I think gradually things are falling into place, and the sooner I actually start back to work (planning for the 15th still), the sooner I can stop the stress of anticipating it.