The End of Day[care]s

Every time a beloved pet dies, I curse myself for loving so much. “This would be easier if I weren’t so attached,” I think. “I’ll never get another pet because this hurts too much.” Somehow, those moments of grief—when I’m in them—overshadow the years of companionship, the couch snuggles, the cold-nose wake-ups, the treat scrambles, the tricks and eccentricities that made the animal more person than pet. All I can see and feel is the big gaping hole in my heart.

This is exactly how I’m reacting to Wombat leaving daycare. As much as we’re looking forward to the next big thing, my sadness over this phase ending has become a black hole, a dark cloud casting a shadow over two and a half years of radiant awesomeness. I know for sure I wouldn’t be so sad now if I hadn’t loved it so much, if it hadn’t been such an easy place to love. I’d better not make this mistake in the future, I tell myself. I must practice the zen art of unattachment.

I look back at pictures of Wombat at daycare and I remember worrying about him during those early weeks, wondering if he’d fit in. If he’d be safe. If he’d miss me (too much). If we were making a mistake.

First day.

Then I remember seeing pictures of him having the time of his life, usually bogarting the Cozy Coupe.

I remember the excitement of his first Japanese words showing up in context at home.

I remember this:

I have stacks and stacks of masterpieces from Art Days, and there are still crumbs in the car from cake made on a Cooking Day long past.

I remember when all the kids used to run to the gate yelling “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” when I’d arrive because that’s what Wombat always did when he saw me through the lace curtains of the front window.

It’s hard saying goodbye–to Daycare Lady, to Daycare Assistant, to three home-cooked organic meals, to Judo Day, to field trips, to sleepovers, to hanging out with the other parents at pick-up while our kids graffiti the driveway with chalk drawings or race up and down the sidewalk, just to the hedge and back. I’ll remember (I hope) the flowers and rocks and sticks and grass Wombat would collect for building fairy houses against the chimney with Daycare Lady’s daughter–his pseudo sister–while Daycare Dog ran across the grass and I gave myself a virtual biscuit for being able to command her in a language I now sort of know. I’ll miss seeing all the kids’ shoes lined up outside the front door. I will really miss the photos and videos I’d get over email twice a day–the kids in their chef hats and aprons, the triumphant “ta da!”s after balancing on the plastic blocks, that one time they put Wombat up the apple tree.

I know without a doubt that at three and three quarters Wombat has outgrown daycare and that preschool is the place for him. I’m just so SAD. I wish the situation were an AND instead of an OR. I loved it so much, and now, in the throes of change, kind of wish I hadn’t.

But not really.

We can’t help loving what we love; I know the deep truthy truth of this. We can’t even temper what we love–make ourselves love less, somehow, what we already love fiercely.

Nor should we.

We don’t always get over it, but we certainly get through it. We love and enjoy and move on and hurt and miss and love again and all the while thank our lucky stars we live in the age of photo technology so we have a thousand and one pictures and videos as evidence of those few brief (too brief) years when most of your friends wore giant cloth diapers and napped in sleep sacks made of cinched pillowcases and were practically your siblings; when you spent days with Mommy, Mami, and Okaasan; when you were three years old and could recite times tables in Japanese, even though you had no idea what they meant; when you first left home, off to have your own adventures, and I had to push myself to let you go and am so, so, so glad I did, even now, tears and all.

Second week.

Naysayers look down on daycare and ask, “Why would you let a stranger raise your child?” I have a dozen answers: Because we need to work. Because our kid needs to be socialized. Because we have no idea how to raise a small human and can use the advice and help. Because what could possibly be bad about more people loving him as we do? I’m proud to say we had help raising our son because the people who did it are not strangers, they are, as Daycare Lady impressed upon me as I stood on her front porch and cried on Friday, family. “We’re family now,” she said, and I told her thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And to save a spot for Fox in 2013.

As for today, it’s onward to the next great adventure, to the next thing we might love with all our hearts.