Four Kids In, and I'm Starting Daycare All Over Again

Hi, friends! Yesterday Lisa wrote about how wild it is to have big kids who are suddenly out in the world on their own, going their own way, heading overseas, getting their driver's licenses. In other words, they're becoming more independent of their parents every day.

While a lot of you were reading her piece, I was sitting in on our youngest's settling-in period. In Germany, that means a parent stays with the child at the new daycare while they get used to it. He's been with an in-home childcare provider since shortly after his first birthday, and he had the sweetest, most sheltered year and a half there. Now it's time to switch to a daycare center.

So Lisa and I are living in completely different worlds right now. My oldest is already 14½, which technically makes her a teenager, but I can't say I need to be any less present in our day-to-day. There's still the 11-year-old, the 8-year-old, and of course the 2-year-old. Sure, the three older ones can stay home alone now and then, they make plans with friends on their own, or they just want some peace and quiet in their rooms. But overall, my days are still very much shaped by what the kids need.

Mom, where's the card game, what's for dinner, where's my ball, I need a Band-Aid, I can't fall asleep, can you call Moritz's mom and see if he's free, when are you going to the drugstore again, we're out of ketchup, why does he get two Nutella sandwiches and I only get one, why do you want to cut my toenails again, but I'm not tired yet, did you wash my jersey, I don't like sauce on my rice, can we go to the trampoline park again, I'm bored…..

Then come the days with countless sentences that start with Moooooom, endless negotiations and discussions, and rounds of blowing on boo-boos. The days when I had to talk somebody into a shower yet again, blow up ten balloons in a row because one was always popped, dump half a sandbox out of shoes, hang up jackets, make sandwiches, and peel cucumbers. On those days, I cast longing glances toward the time when I won't be needed quite so much.

Little kids are exhausting and wonderful

But little kids are also wonderful. Today at settling-in, I got to watch two four-year-olds play, and my heart went completely soft at all that creativity and openness. Nothing beats a two-year-old planting a wet smooch on your cheek, and nothing is cuter than a toddler's funny word mix-ups.

So here I am, actually standing at the start of the daycare years one more time. It's the last time I'll get to experience this special stage (at least with one of my own kids). Sometimes I have to pinch myself, because I can't believe I'm doing all of this for the fourth time. And then I'm truly, totally grateful all over again that I get to experience exactly this.