Tuesday, February 28, 2006

First time at nursery

Oliver has been to his nursery for the first time.

He went for one hour last Friday and Hayley stayed there with him. That was not too bad, though the reality of leaving him with other people every day did start to hit home wih her.

Yesterday he went again and spent an hour there with Hayley watching through a window. Oliver was fne: it was Hayley that was upset, getting a bit tearful while she kept an eye on him.

Today he went again, this time for 3 hours and Hayley came home after dropping him off. I was at home, ill, and as soon as she walked through the door she put her amrs round me and had a little cry. The pain of realising that she will have to leave him like that every day after being his full-time Mummy for all this time really hit her hard.

We spent the free time while he was at nursery finally getting round to writing Thank You cards for Oliver's christening gifts (not that we managed to post them yet!). Then Hayley went to pick him up. As soon as she walked into the room she saw him sitting by himself in a chair just staring around him. The moment he spotted her his face broke into a huge smile and he got really excited. When they got home he got a big fuss from me too.

On the down side Hayley noticed when she collected him that his bib was soaked with dribble and was the same one he had been wearing when she'd left him 3 hours earlier. This concerned us as she had specifically left fresh bibs and asked that they change them because he has a chesty cough at the moment.

Worse still, she noticed a red mark on his head when he came home as if he had banged it. He was then out of sorts for the rest of the afternoon, not his usual cheery self when she took him out with her friend Jo and baby Niamh.

Not a very confidence inspiring start to his life at nursery. But it's early days. Hopefully we'll see more positive signs in his future trips, but to be honest we have already started to discuss alternatives such as child carers or a different nursery.

Then of course there is the option of Hayley giving up work completely to look after him. But this is not an easy decision. We very much want to move to a larger house, very preferably in an area with a good school. The loss of income would make this scenario a pipe dream, or at least mean that we wouldn't have money spare to do things with him such as "Tumble Tots" and "Rhythm and Rhyme" that he attends now.

It's something we have been wrestling with in our minds since before he was born and I can't see that changing. There is always a compromise to be made, simply because money and time are not in endless supply. Having a stay-at-home Mum would be great, but how can we fund it?

Looks like I won't be throwing away my lottery numbers just yet then.