Working Mom Blahs

Zoe, also 3 months, and Olivia. Zoe visits from the other infant classroom sometimes.





I’m a working Mom. I didn’t want to be but here I am. After taking nine years to conceive and carry our baby girl to full term I just didn’t feel right sending her to day care but the bills kept coming and the promotion David was promised didn’t.


So a week ago Thursday, with tears in my eyes, I dropped off Olivia at Excel Learning Center in Palm Harbor for the first time. David was with me but it was easier for him because he’s been working since the week after she was born. For me, like I suspect it is for most moms, it was very traumatic. I call the day care every day to check on her. Once when they paged her classroom I even heard, “I think it’s Olivia’s mom,” from a voice I don’t know. That’s OK. They said to call and I do. They don’t seem to mind and it makes me feel better. Still, I work as quickly as I can and then try to run out the door right at 4 to go get my baby girl.


Laura and Diane, her teachers, and Peggy, the infant teacher next door, have fallen in love with her. Who wouldn’t really? They say she’s the most well-behaved, sweetest, most beautiful baby they’ve seen in all their years of teaching. Sure, I know they’ve probably said that to other parents but I’m pretending they don’t and am swelling with pride.


Though Olivia smiles when we pick her up and drop her off, the first seven days hasn’t been all roses for her. After her first two-day week, she came down with a cold. First a little cough, followed by lots of sneezing and nasal congestion. Still, she smiled her heart-melting gummy smile in between coughs and sneezes. But then came her soupy diapers and a horrible diaper rash. We plan on taking her to the pediatrician tomorrow, the day after her 3-month birthday.


On Thursday, Mommy’s (that’s me) throat got a little scratchy and by this morning it was a full-blown cold. Then this afternoon, Diane from Excel called to tell me there was a little accident with Olivia. She’s fine, she said, but one of the slightly older babies (Olivia’s the youngest in the under 1-year-old room) flung a bottle off a table and it smacked Olivia right in the middle of her forehead, causing tears, a tiny bump and some redness. She is OK but there’s no doubt we’re getting the full day-care experience right from the get-go.