After the girls were first born, Jenn obviously was home with them for a while, and I actually took over after that for about 3 weeks, give or take, mostly because I get more vacation than I can use, and I could. This took us to around Jan '09 without needing any kind of daycare. Jenn's mom Ruth took over for us at that point; she'd walk over in the morning, and take care of them until I got home at around 5 or so. Which was awesome of course - daycare showing up at your house - but couldn't last forever, as we knew. Seems like I'm remembering she took care of them until about 9 or 10 months old, until they eventually became too heavy and too active for her to keep up with 5 days a week, and still keep her sanity. So, we started looking for daycare options.
While we looked, we briefly toyed with the idea of me becoming a stay-at-home dad. We weren't sure what our daycare costs were going to be, and whether they might threaten to make my take home pay redundant. As it turned out, the answer to that question was "No", but for several days I was seriously considering the possibility, what it would mean for my life, whether I'd have been able to handle it, etc. I'm sure that overall it would have been great, but honesty compels me to admit that there are times when I could not imagine having to take care of the girls by myself 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Times like this weekend, for example.
Kayla and Megan are sick. A cold ravaged the house a few weeks back that the girls mostly recovered from, save for an occasional cough. It was never serious enough for us to worry, we know by now that the answer from the doctor would have been "Push fluids, watch her appetite, let us know if there's a fever or it gets worse". Late Friday and this weekend, however, the cough started getting worse, and we started seeing all the classic "I don't feel good" symptoms. We had Megan in on Saturday as she was the first to start a fever, and had the worse bark. They told us it was probably viral, but gave us an antibiotic just in case it was "clinical bronchitis", which seems to be one of those medical terms that translates into "Eh, we're not really sure". Kayla we had in yesterday, same diagnosis/result (although the over-eager PA did try a breathing treatment as well).
You come to appreciate how much kids depend on their routines. This is something every parenting source in the world will mention, but doesn't really sink in until you've experienced the consequences first hand. Even at 2+, it seems to snowball. A little stuffiness leads to a missed nap. A missed nap leads to a cranky afternoon. A cranky afternoon leads to an even crankier evening, at which point they become overtired and fight sleep more than usual. Rinse and repeat for 3 days, and your result is Megan still awake at 9pm tonight, sitting on Mommy's lap watching House in the living room.
Jenn stayed home with both girls today. It was up and down most of the day it sounds like, but when I got home, it's like a balloon popped. Within about 10 minutes Megan was in an inconsolable mood. She wanted Daddy to hold, then Mommy. She wanted juice, then sent it away when offered. She wanted to sit and snuggle to watch Dora, but why would I expect her to want to sit in that chair? Megan's ability to keep herself awake is legendary, but she really took it to another level tonight. At one point she crawled down from Jenn and wanted to go play with some blocks. She got as far as the block bucket, put her hands in to fetch some....and that's where the effort stalled. In retrospect we maybe should have just let her stay there, she probably would have fallen asleep right there, hands still half-clutching the blocks.
We finally got her down around 9:30, which of course means she'll be 2 hours in the hole to start out with today. There's some concern of ear infection, but they tend to wake up feeling OK, I think we'll probably have to try daycare today. Schedule, how we have missed you.
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