It’s OFFICIAL!

Pumpkin will be starting daycare/preschool on Tuesday. She’ll be attending two days per week – full days – and while I’m still feeling a bit guilty about sending her to daycare when I’ll be home and perfectly capable of watching her, I know that this is going to be a good thing for both of us.

For starters, I’m a bit over my head with tax season. Hubby is working 60+ hours each week and everything is on me – on top of the household stuff I do, I am still working part time. I have a lot of balls in the air, and I’m not that great of a juggler. My goal is to spend the two days focusing primarly on getting most of my work hours in. That way, I’m able to be a more present mom on the days when the girls are here – I really hope that having more separation between work life and home life allows me to be happier with both.

I’m also hoping that daycare is able to get Pumpkin more interested in the whole potty training thing. She’s pretty underwhelmed with the whole process and while she wants to wear big girl underpants, it doesn’t bother her to pee in them. Or worse. I’m surprisingly patient when it comes to that, but honestly, I don’t want her in diapers forever either. I know she should be potty trained by now, or at least somewhat interested in the process… but she’s not. At all (except for the wearing of the undies – that part she loves).

I have now taken Pumpkin to the daycare twice, both times she was able to participate in Circle Time and loved it. Soon, she’ll learn all the songs and who all the kids are. I’m also glad she’ll have the opportunity to learn how to interact with other kids (aside from The Princess), and also to interact with adults other than family.

I can think of so many positives about this step, that I know it’s a good thing for all of us (with the exception of the hit on our wallet, which is decidedly a sucky aspect of this all). For now, the plan is to try this until the end of the school year. If all goes well, we’ll pick up again in the fall. Just knowing it doesn’t have to be permanent keeps me from getting too misty-eyed about it. In fact, I’m kind of looking forward to her gaining some independence, and me being able to find some independence again too.