zina, warrior princess...

This morning I dropped Alexis off at the SEI child care center. While "checking in" for the first time, I started to feel it. I think only women can understand the feeling of tears "welling up" inside. I really do think it creeps up from the heart, as sappy as that sounds. As I'm talking to the infant room teacher I can hear the telltale sound in my voice. Any man that has argued with a woman on the verge of tears knows the sound. The throat tightens, the pitch comes up a bit, and the words come out a bit differently. A woman is at the breaking point at that point. Choose your words wisely. Tip the emotional scale and the waterworks will start. I held on for dear life and managed to suck it up...this was my first day back to work and I couldn't ruin my subtle office mascara.

I then asked where I should place my dear little one, since for some reason it didn't seem that all teachers were rushing my way to dote on her and her alone. One was checking in my bottles, the other was feeding some undeserving little boy. She tells me to put her somewhere she'd be comfortable. I look around...nothing looks good enough for my little diva. I finally opt for an interesting thing that can only be described as a baby pool made out of pillow material. She gives me "the lip". Oh goodness it was terrible. I shook a stuffed fish in her face, the lip went away, and I finally decided to leave quickly and quietly. It was like the feeling before diving into a frigid pool...just do it and get it over with...it's going to feel bad no matter what.

The whole way back to my desk all I can see in my head is my daughter, terribly alone and abandoned, doomed to sit in a strange stuffed pool all day. And that lip...I see the lip in my head the entire time. As a side note, another phenomenon with women's teary state is that, if you do manage to hold the tears back, you can't actually talk about what's wrong. Doing so will break down whatever wall you've managed to build and the crying begins.

I get to my team's area and someone says, "welcome back...how did it go?!". I simply shake my head, raise my hand as I walk by, and hope that she understands - I can't talk now or I'll start weeping. My team is almost all mommies, both new and old, so I was given some hugs and reassurance from the women around me. I dove into a 10:00 meeting which was incredibly rewarding and productive, and for a second I almost forgot about my trying morning. A mid-day visit showed me that my daughter was not still in the makeshift pool, that everyone loved her, and that they seemed to be playing musical Alexis.

This morning I placed my little girl, who I saw every day all day for 10 weeks, in the care of someone else. Zina, the fabulous, kind, and experienced caretaker in the infant room made me feel so at ease. She is strong, confident, yet also understanding of the needs of both the child and the parent (and in the end it really is much harder on mom then baby). She's in good hands with her - Zina is not frail and looks quite tough. If one of the kids from the toddler room starts talking smack and startin' s**t, Zina will be able to rough them up to protect my little one.