in case you're visiting for the first time...

This didn't start as a mommy blog. I hereby vow that my next post will not be parenthood themed. It will be an observation about life that is NOT viewed through Gracie-colored glasses. Who am I kidding, everything is now viewed through Gracie-colored glasses. But I should really make an effort to write about something that isn't a trite take on what is really a universal experience.

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OMG, I'm watching my first new episode of "How I Met Your Mother" in at least a year, and Marshall and Lily had a baby! Time to start watching this show again!

Something tells me that sending Gracie to full-time daycare, which officially starts this Friday, is going to be the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I now wish I had listened to all the well-meaning, yet annoying (at the time) people who told me months ago that I should start leaving Gracie with a sitter for short periods. Suffice it to say they were right.

Another thing I wish? That I didn't have to leave her for so very long. Starting Monday, I will likely have about four waking hours with Gracie per day. She sleeps from 7 pm to 5 am. I'll have to leave the house by 6:30 every morning, and will pick her up at 4 in the afternoon, at the earliest. Next quarter, I may not get home until 6! She'll either have to start being a night owl (yay! We can watch Parenthood and Revenge together!) or...well, there aren't any other choices. Other than us moving back to Seattle, which is currently in discussion. Another move with a baby. Time to stock up on Paxil.

I know that her time in the Polliwog classroom (so cute! but I dread the day she graduates to be a "Mini Muncher," so...dumb) will be enriching and ultimately for the best. Just watching her eyes widen in wonder when she sees another baby, and how much more alive and engaged she is when she gets home, is enough to convince me that spending all day alone with me has been stifling and boring for both of us at times. Like, yesterday she suddenly started clapping with her mouth agape after she did something remotely achievement-y (like closing the door of her pop-up toy), looking at me expectantly like I was supposed to shout, "Yay!" So I did, and she kept closing the door, then clapping. She had never done anything like this before, and I give credit to the Polliwogs.

If only I could make her experience this much glee every hour, I'd consider staying home.

But hearing her hoarse cry from the backseat as I drove her home today after her first four-hour Polliwog day--yes, she was hoarse from crying the whole time--was heart-breaking. I also live in mortal fear that she'll start waking up again at night from the separation distress, or because she's simply hungry, having refused to eat or drink anything at daycare so far, other than one chunk of peach. (The teacher reported, when I called to check on her, that "Gracie took a break from her tears to eat her piece of peach." AWWWWWWW!!!!!!!) So while I know the socializing and separation will be good for her development, I wish it could be more gradual, maybe a few hours, a few days a week. Not every single hour of daylight.

If only she'd do this at daycare.

But--another but--every minute that I do have with her will be precious. As a dear friend who is now also a new mother reminded me, love is not measured in time. Time seems to stop when I'm stroking her otter-sleek head as she burrows into me. And as her otter-sharp claws dig into my arms, or worm their way into my mouth (her favorite ways of showing her affection for me, or maybe she's just sharpening her claws). These moments are burnished in gold, like my mom promised me they would be, and we'll get through the other stuff somehow.

I guess this rollercoaster never ends

Things I never thought I'd do, but shouldn't be surprised at when they happen:

• cry at any NPR story that relates, even tangentially, to a child dying, a child leaving voicemail messages for her working mother, or a homeless mother and child
• cry at the final scene of tonight's Parenthood in which the daughter goes off to college and tries to be all nonchalant but leaves the airport security line to tearfully hug her parents
• cry as I type that last bullet point, ten minutes after the cheesy scene has ended

On a lighter note:

• try to make my nine-month-old child watch TV in a desperate attempt to let me clip her nails, squirt saline into her nose, or end a tantrum caused by not letting her chew on my cell phone (the old TV trick lasts five seconds, max, so I don't feel that guilty about it)

Uh-oh

I've reached the point in parenthood where I feel it's necessary to spend $30 on a padded cover for the shopping cart seat. (Hey! It doubles as a cover for those grimy restaurant high chairs.) The overpriced baby gear industry is kept alive by people like me. But when going to Target/Costco/Trader Joe's is my most frequent activity, and Gracie loves sitting in the seat but spends all her time gumming the cart handle, and I recently took a 7-hour class on pathogens in which I learned that MRSA can live on a surface for months--well, then, $30 seems like a bargain for an absolute essential!

I must remember that I thought the same thing about a bunch of things that are now in the bin labeled "take to consignment store"--cloth diaper wraps, the Bumbo chair she sat in for two weeks, the head and neck support for the stroller I never used.

But the plush picnic foods playset that enthralled Gracie at the wedding we went to last weekend? Now that is a true essential. I am tempted to ask Ben for it for my birthday. It's just that she so loved chewing on the squishy milk carton!

Then again, she got an even more excited look--of manic glee, really--when I let her chew on a box of crackers in the (unpadded) Trader Joe's shopping cart last week. What do you think is worse: ingesting paper pulp from a cracker box (which could be MRSA-laden) or sucking on plastic toys that are not certified phthalate- or BPA-free?