2nd Week of School

So it's Friday night and Lauryn has finished up her second week of school. I hesitated at typing the word 'school' because it just seems so inappropriate to me that my three year old is going to 'school'. This is not what I had idealized. The school is good. Lauryn is super happpy and I am second guessing. Is this the right thing? Should she have come to my group? (I am running a 3-day a week playgroup for pre-school aged children whose mums aren't quite ready to have them in proper school yet.) So do you see my dilemna? I feel like you might be reading this and saying 'well why didn't you just keep her with you?' But when I made the decision (way back in June) to go back to work part time in the fall - to be very frank - one of the reasons behind that was the fact that I felt desperately like I needed to have some time *away* from mothering. I feel so guilty admitting that. Like that makes me some sort of bad mom or something.

Anyway - i digress (as usual). She goes to a Montessori group with a broad age range (from 3 to 6 i think) and she is loving every single moment of it. When I go to get her, I have to pry her from the class. And it's been this way from the very first day. This makes me feel like I have done the right thing and that I've done most of 'the right things' up until this point because she IS so confident. But who knows? What if that has nothing to with what I have done, so much as it's just who she is? And then there's having my just about to turn one year old son being looked after (very lovingly) by someone else. Does this make me a crappy mom too? My friend DTS and I always talk about this village. That we are not meant to mother in isolation. So this leads to us feeling like we need a break from our kids. So this translates to work outside the home. (To be fair to myself, though - a major reason I took this position was that I really needed to know that when I want to go and visit my parents in their respective countries, the $ would be there for that to happen. Not going to see my folks just IS NOT an option for me. The end.)

All that to say what? It's the end of the 2nd week in school for me and my daughter. And the end of the 4th week of 'other mothering' for my son. And what I need to say to myself is that - dammit - I'm doing the very best that I can, and it seems to be working.

silence clarity love