July 26, 2016

Dear Baby,

Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about you. It’s just that since you started to feel better we have been busy. 

So news: we have a nanny starting with us next week. This is pretty groundbreaking for us, baby. In 10 months we have not spent more than 3 hours apart and we will now be apart from 10-4 twice a week. I don’t know how to feel about this. 

On the one hand, I’m sad. Really sad. I LOVE LOVE LOVE spending time with you. I genuinely think you are fun to hang out with and so much of my life right now is based on being with you. I feel an emptiness in my being when I think of being away from you. 

On another hand, I’m fucking nervous. Without my eyes on you I can’t manage every little thing and I am nothing if not thorough and obsessive. I’m nervous about what you will do all day. If you will be happy and feel safe. 

I have dedicated my whole self to ensuring that your needs are always met and now I have to trust that someone else will care as much as I do about nurturing the things I find important and valuable. 

On another hand (because we all have 3 hands- right?), I am excited. The whole point of having someone to help me is so that I can work and work has been really coming together. In my ideal world, the work I am doing will allow me to have the best of both worlds- to be a working woman with a career she can be proud of and to be around for you. 

I’m excited to show you that your mom is a person into herself and that despite my keen knack for making up amazing songs and shaking a rattle with you, I also have important things to contribute to the world outside of you and I. 

But I’m mostly just anxious about the change. I’m anxious about what it will feel like to get a picture from someone of the fun you are having without me. I’m anxious that not being with you for those days will change the way you look at me. I’m anxious that I might miss something. 

I’m anxious that everything I have been doing for what feels like forever is being turned around. That my job as your important primary care giver is coming to an end. That you don’t really need me the same way you once did. That soon you might not need me at all. 

I’m anxious of who I am going to find on those 2 days when I am not taking the sole role of “mom.”

I’m excited to find out. 

I think. 

Baby, I can’t stress enough to you how much change is an inevitable part of life. The more we fear it, the scarier it becomes. You have to focus on the moments and enjoy each as the come and go knowing that none are permanent. We are always changing. This is a good thing. I promise. 

I think. 

xo

Mom