A week spent caring for other people's children

Yep, I spent a little over a week doing daycare for 6 kids from ages 4 months up to 6 years old.  After the first day of it, I went to visit Mom in her hospital room and she asked if I was managing ok… given my sensitivity about babies and kids right now.

The truth was, I didn’t have too big of a problem caring for other people’s kids despite the fact that we’re trying so unsuccessfully hard to have our own right now.  Believe it or not, the 4-month-old baby was the best part of the whole thing.  You’d think that would be the hardest because it’s so close to the one thing I want most right now.  But I guess I’ve just always loved babies and kids and going home to my Mom’s and helping with (or in this case… doing it solo) daycare still feels good, like I’m getting my “baby fix.”

For me, caring for and spending time with children is not like hearing about other people brag or complain about their children on Facebook.  It’s completely different when you are doing something active with a child, and you know you are doing something important, or valuable, or needed.  When you are making a difference, really helping, you connect with the child and it’s not about you.  It’s not about what that child’s parents have and you don’t.

Rather, it's about what that child needs right now and what you can do about it.  And like everything else in life, practical experience teaches you, and you learn how to be better in the future.  I figure my life-long-learning experiences with children will make me be the most amazing mother someday, when our time finally comes.  I mean, how many other women have had THIS MUCH experience with kids before becoming a parent themselves?  Plenty, I’m sure (teachers, nurses, daycare providers, etc), but not many that I personally know of in my peer group – so I’d like to continue believing that this makes me special and I’ll be a super-mom because I so-patiently-waited for such a long time. J

Anyway, it gives me comfort and satisfaction to connect with a child.  I feel validated when I successfully soothe a child, make them feel better, or teach them something.  I feel like I am right to want a child of my own.  I feel like I will be good at being a mother someday.  I feel like all this wishing, hoping, frustration, angst, despair is all worth it.  Because in the end, this is something really important to who I am.  And after all this time and after all these hurdles… it’s still who I want to be.

That, and rocking a baby to sleep always has been and always will be my favorite thing to do, ever.