Busy with Silas, almost 11 months

Well, it's mid-November and Silas is at daycare while Brian and I are both home sick from work.  The house is eerily quiet, and I feel almost as though I'm in a sad alternate reality where Silas was never born.  Then I look out across the living room and see his little push cart, and the toys we've made him, and a tiny sweater laying on top of some tiny boots...

Let's start with the weekend and move backwards.

Silas got sick on Saturday night, his first proper illness.  He seemed fine except that he was so snotty he couldn't breathe lying down, so I held him on the couch almost all night, until 6 AM, when Brian carried him in a carrier to get a bit more sleep.  He was very good-natured about the whole thing, honestly.  The next day he was energetic and happy almost all day, with an hour or two during which he only wanted to sit on my lap and read books (which was adorable and not at all a shame).  Unfortunately, somewhere around mid-morning I started to feel sick, and Brian soon after.  Unlike Silas, we didn't just have stuffy noses, but fever, chills, painful skin, achy joints, the works.  I'd been dreading this parenting moment since before I was pregnant.  I knew it was going to be miserable.  It's terrible feeling really sick.  It's worse not to have anybody to take care of you.  It's worse than that to have to work anyway.  And it's worst of all to have to take care of somebody else, nonstop.  It wasn't a dire situation, just one of life's most unpleasant little tricks.

Silas got his cold from daycare.  He started exactly a week ago.  It was hard at first - very hard.  He was extraordinarily clingy.  Grandma Marsha volunteered to stay with him for a few days, and while she was in the room he wouldn't eat, play or even move unless she was at his side.  If I was present, he ping-ponged between us, anxious to leave one at the expense of the other.  He cried if either of us stood up or even moved.  I thought he would never adjust.  But when I thought about it a bit more, I remembered how happy he was to play at the daycare on the first two days, when he hadn't yet realized that it was a place he would be left.  At that point it was still a fabulous room full of toys!  After a few days, he clearly recognized the place and began to cry when we walked in the front door, but once the actual separation occurred, he cheered up in less than 5 minutes.  I ended up deciding that it was too stressful for him to know that his people were going to leave, but not know when.  Once we did finally leave him, he cried for just a couple minutes and then had a great day on his own, settling himself for naptime without help and taking a nice long nap.  He seemed happy with the other kids, participated in the routines (sitting at a table and eating from a plate, etc.), and learned quite a bit too.  After a few days around little Max and Danny, Silas came how having learned how to "dance" - he bops adorably and waves his arms and claps.  He also points, uses a number of labels for items which we do not understand, and does so many fine motor tasks I'm losing count.  Oh, and he draws!  By which I mean he smacks pens or crayons on paper.

Silas started daycare because our childcare arrangement with the grandparents ended.  I feel so fortunate that Silas was cared for one-on-one until now (not just one-on-one, but grandparents!), and also that I was able to be there very often, if I didn't have to do hands-on work in the lab.  Although I still wish I'd had a year-long maternity leave like they have in civilized countries, I don't feel as though I missed Silas's infancy.  I think one-on-one care was unquestionably the best thing for him during his early infancy, especially having seen how frustrating daycare can be for non-mobile babies who can't meet any of their own needs.  Now, while I would love to be with him all day long, I think he's showing signs of being ready for this type of arrangement.  Or at least, ready enough that it won't be detrimental.  He's interacting more and more with other children, he learns from watching them, and I think he really loves having daily activities, space to move around indoors, and lots of fascinating toys.  He really seems like a toddler now!  It's been terribly hard to relinquish him to daycare, but I have to admit that he seems to enjoy it.  Today when we picked him up, he actually reached out for his teacher Miss Keana as we were leaving!  Now that's a good sign.

Smoothing the transition has been Monkey, his lovey.  We knew he was bonded to Monkey, but we didn't quite know how much - in our absence, he takes Monkey EVERYWHERE - he eats lunch with Monkey next to his plate, he sleeps with Monkey, he plays with Monkey in his lap on the floor. (He actually did finger painting with Monkey too - Monkey came home coated in red paint and needed a bath!) Monkey is his constant companion, and I'm so glad that he has a familiar source of comfort when we are away.

The last few months have been very difficult for us.  Brian is working extraordinary hours, to what seems like no avail - his workload is so huge and overwhelming that we never feel even close to on top of it.  Weekends are stressful and filled with work, evenings (even weekend evenings) are... also full of work.  It's inescapable.  My energy has been directed towards finishing writing a manuscript (it's done!  I'm hoping one day I can be proud to say I completed the experiments, analysis and writing during Silas's first year), taking care of Silas when Brian isn't home, keeping the house from chaos (Brian is involved too, of course, but isn't home as much), managing Silas's care/lunch/outfits/supplies, and just generally trying to keep our family afloat.  We are hoping for easier times ahead.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day, so we will have another day off, fortunately.  After next week, we will have Thanksgiving vacation in Vermont, and then after a whirlwind few weeks involving a lot of professional obligations for me (giving seminars and meeting with my committee, that sort of thing), we will have Silas's first birthday, Christmas vacation in Ithaca (but not on the actual day, when I will have to be here feeding the fish!) and - hopefully - some space to breathe.

For now, Brian and I are running low fevers again and we're complaining of achy legs and looking at piles of unwashed dishes and wondering how we're going to amuse Silas this evening.  First we'll get healthy, then we'll visit family, and then maybe the second half of the year will be a little bit less frantic.  Let's hope that amid this extraordinarily busy time we don't lose the ability to stop and enjoy Silas in all his baby/toddlery ways.  He's so much fun to watch!  He now knows what fridge magnets are, and if he finds one he'll take it over to the fridge and stick it on. He pushes the cat in the cart.  He brings us books to read and demands them to be read multiple times.  Such fun to be had, if we can manage to take a breath.