Daddy's Home Dance

Back when I first began this parenting journey and there was just 1 little monkey in our family who was far, far away from doing any kind of dancing, a friend who was a stay at home mom of a one year old described for me the "Daddy's Home Dance". She was explaining what she missed most about working and for her it was best explained as not getting an enthusiastic "Welcome Back Mom!" from her little one because she never left as opposed to her husband who did get this lovely dance each evening after work. At that time I nodded along, but I was working full time and absolutely hated leaving my brand new little guy at all. I just couldn't understand ever wanting to have some space from that little person. I thought my friend just didn't know how good she had it.

Fast forward to my life now, with 3 little monkeys and me a stay at home mom...I get it. I miss a lot of things about work and now that I've not been working for almost 20 months, I know that my memories are jaded a bit. The frustrating and annoying are not as easy to remember as the positives. Most of all, I miss that break from being a mom. I miss that reentry into motherhood and the exciting chorus line that happens when the other parent in this household walks through the door. It is hard to be a working mom and not everything about my working was great, but I do miss it.

This year is different than last. It feels like the overwhelming fog of too many changes at once has lifted and I am getting breaks from the constant tending to of other's needs. It is getting easier to be me, though maybe not as easy to be my calendar--it is quite overloaded!

You might have noticed that today is Tuesday. Today was Sarah's 3rd day at her little school. She has cried the last two times at drop off, but not too much and she's fine. She doesn't love every minute of it, but she wouldn't love accompanying me on much of what I schedule to get done on Tuesday mornings either. Today when I went to pick her up, she was standing next to another parent picking up one of her "copains" (buddies). She appeared to be listening very intently to the conversation between mother and daughter, but suddenly she looked over at me and her face lit up with recognition and she started running toward me with her arms open. I was thinking, Yes! This is what I've missed. Come to mamma! With the biggest smile on her face as she ran over to me, she called out, "DAAAAAAADEEEEEEE!"

All this time we thought she knew that word was the name of the person who leaves most often and then comes back home to the excited chorus of her older brother and sister. Apparently she thinks it is just a greeting given to anyone who leaves and then comes back. Not quite what I had in mind, but it will have to do.

For the time being I don't have any photos or videos of our "Daddy's Home Dance" so here are some pictures of a very special ballerina who went to her first dance class yesterday. She was beyond excited! She was so self-confident and independent in there. Apparently our Hannah has quite a reputation at school (the good kind)...I went to the new library yesterday during her dance class to sign up to help out during her library class and the librarian knew her. "Oh, you're Hannah's mom? She's so very lovely." (I think I mumbled something like, "well, sometimes...")

She interrupted me, "No, really, I adore her. She is spot on!" Well okay then. How can you argue with that? She really is very lovely, even if we are completely biased.