The final week of daycare (for now)

Today begins Nate's final week at daycare. With our earnings what they are right now, we can't afford to keep him in any longer.

I haven't mentioned it before today because it's breaking my heart, daily, and if I mentioned it too early, I'd be crying about it on here every day (because I'm crying about it every day in real life). I've cried myself to sleep, I've cried in the bathroom at work, I've cried in the car after dropping Nate off at daycare, after picking him up, while rocking him before bed. I cried terribly when I had to write the official email giving the daycare owner our 30 days notice. I couldn't even speak through my tears when I saw her in person and she let me know she got the email and was sorry to see us go. 

Some of the irony in this is not lost on me. I read enough parenting blogs to realize how many parents feel awful because they put their kids in daycare and here I feel awful that Nate's going to have to stay home every day. He was going to daycare three days a week; two of those days my mother-in-law is going to watch him and Kate will be watching him once a week (either the hubby or I am home the other days). They are godsends, for sure, and I'm beyond glad that they're available to help us right now otherwise I have no idea what we would do.

But I keep thinking back to that first day of daycare, when I cried because I felt so terrible that Nate was starting daycare at an age where he was old enough to understand that he was being left with people he didn't know, but wasn't old enough to understand if I explained why to him. It broke my heart to think that he felt confused and abandoned that first day. 

And now, as we have to pull him from daycare, he's just started to not cry when I drop him off. He loves his teachers and he has little friendships building. My niece is out of daycare for the summer (since my sister is a teacher and home for the summer) but when she returns to daycare next month, Nate won't be there. And now, after this week, just as I worried he was going to be confused that first day, now I wonder if he's going to wonder why he doesn't get to go to that fun place with the nice teachers and his friends every day.

I feel awful. I feel like a terrible, terrible parent. I feel like I have completely, utterly let Nate down. You know how when you were little and did something bad, the worst feeling you had was when your parents said, "You disappointed us. We expect more of you. We know you're a better person than this."

That's how I feel now. I've disappointed Nate. By starting him daycare, I feel like I made a promise to him: "Hey, buddy, you get acclimated to this and I promise I won't rip the rug out from under you." And I broke that promise.

And this arrangement isn't without sacrifice on the part of my mother-in-law and Kate, either. They have lives and things going on. And if they get sick or something happens, we're going to have to scramble for what to do.

My main goal now, regardless of what else I have going on, is to get Nate back into daycare. We're cutting every expense where possible, but that's still just going to get us keeping even, I think. We need more income, but with our alternating schedules, neither of us has the free time for a second job. With grad school starting up again in a few weeks, I won't even have time for freelance work or teaching online (two options that had crossed my mind).

But this withdrawal will be temporary. I don't know how, exactly, we're going to find our way out of this, but we will. I've conquered a lot of projects and academic programs and goals in my life, but the dedication I feel to this goal is so far beyond what I've felt toward any of those. This is for Nate, and everything about him matters more than anything that's come before. We have to do better for him.