The Night Before Cyan's First Day at Daycare

Why does this feel so much harder than last time?

Could it be the 11 months Cyan and I have spent together, all day, every day, Monday through Friday (and then weekends)? Shopping trips, doctors appointments (his and mine), you name it, we were together. Not to mention his fraught first month in the NICU, which probably isn't helping either.

I only got three months with Periwinkle and Indigo, and it was basically survival mode. Was the bond just not as strong?

Could it be the way Cyan cries for me if he catches the slightest glimpse of me or hears my voice? Will he be crying for me all day? I know the answer is "no" but I can still picture it, him surrounded by strangers, hysterical.

Periwinkle and Indigo didn't get this attached until well after daycare started so it didn't feel so horrible dropping them off. And their attachment was equally to Blue. Cyan definitely has a mommy habit that we need to break or at least soften.

Could it be simply that he is the baby of the family, and quite likely the last kid?

Or maybe it is that this time it is much more a CHOICE. Five years ago I had a fulltime job in the city I had to get back to. My freelancing was not flourishing as it is today. They had to go to daycare. This time around, I/we have decided that maybe it's a good idea, two days a week (yes, just two days a week, and I'm still a bit of a mess), to let me have time to fully focus on work instead of having to work here and there in moments when he is asleep or eating in his high chair next to me, or at night, or while at the older kids' practices, or while they are at a library program. Maybe my sanity needs him gone two days a week.

And maybe he needs to learn to let go of me a little (break my heart). I know he will think the other babies are great fun, because he just LOVES babies. He needs some more socialization with kids. He needs a little less Mommy.

And so it begins. The slow, inevitable separation. The march toward independence that every parent knows is coming the second they first hold their child. Our job is to send them into the world. And so far I haven't had to. We have existed in a little cocoon, away from the world, him and me.

But it's time. We'll see who cries harder in the morning.

But then I'm going to the gym! Finally!