Bird's got a nanny

I have to start teaching again next week. It's time. I'm more ready now than I was a couple of weeks ago, but there's part of me that's still a little sad.

We hired a nanny for Bird for the afternoons. She is a senior in high school and started with us yesterday. I wanted a week with her when I wasn't teaching to get to know her better and be available to answer questions or what not.

Yesterday? Bird didn't cry at all. Until Nanny handed him back to me right before she left.

I've got to learn how to not take things like that personally.

Today, he did cry with her some. And I felt better. Because he cries with me a lot. I know that I try to get too much done when it's just me and him, but I can't help it. Sometimes, I have to put him down to pump. It's just time to do it, and I don't have a choice. Sometimes, I have to fix myself some lunch, and I have to put him down if I'm at the stove or oven. Sometimes, I have to pee, and I have to put him down to wash my hands. It happens.

Nanny's sole responsibility is Christopher though. He has one person in his life that when she is with him, the only thing she has to do is take care of him.

And I find myself wondering how I missed that the first 6 weeks of his life.

Every thank you note I wrote. Every meal I cooked. Every load of laundry I did. Every shower I took. Every blog I read. Time away from Bird. What was I doing?

I had these 6 weeks with Bird where no one expected anything of me except to take care of him, and I'm so damn restless that I found 100 other things to do. So typical.

The nanny is lucky. She is lucky to just get to focus on him. To watch him so carefully that she feeds him before he cries. She has time to sit and rock him and then let him just sleep in her lap.

I'm jealous of the nanny. I will miss the naps and the playtime and the dancing whenever we felt like it. I'm a little jealous.

However, at the end of the day, Nanny has to go home, and Christopher stays right here with me. Because I am his mom.

Stepping back, I think that makes me the lucky one.