Today has been a rainy, stormy, humid day. It’s oppressive. But it isn’t just the weather. My thoughts have been trained on this one day for a long time now. Today isn’t about the humidity. It isn’t about the gloominess of another rainy day in June. It’s about the fact that I have exactly two weeks before going back to work.

It’s the beginning of the countdown.

Two weeks left.

Before I left for maternity leave, I joked that I would never be satisfied staying at home “barefoot in the kitchen.” I scoffed at the mention of part time. I identified with my job and modifying my understanding of that identity sounded not only foreign but completely undesirable.

Fast forward 10 weeks after Emma’s birth and I am closing in on an emotional low. My heart aches when I think about leaving my precious girl with someone else. What if they don’t pick her up as much as I do? What if she sits in a dirty diaper? What if they don’t get her on her tummy or rock her or encourage her the way that I do?

I by no means am questioning the abilities of the daycare we’ve chosen. I am happy that we have the people that we do excitedly waiting to love on our baby girl, to teach her and pray with her in our absence. But there’s something so emotionally raw and vulnerable about entrusting other people with my child. It clouds all rational thought. 

What if?

We’ve scheduled a few short outings before my first day back so I can get used to the idea. It panics me. It takes my breath away. The closer we get, the closer I want to hold her and not let her go to anyone for any amount of time. Not yet…

She’s too small.

My identity has been completely rewritten and in the most naive way, I didn’t think it would be. I rationally evaluated the options, the daycare, the opportunity for Emma to learn and interact with others and I had peace. I hadn’t accounted for the emotion. The emotional bond.

My rational brain knows that Emma will be cared for and that she will thrive in daycare. My rational brain knows that I will get back into a routine at work, albeit a new one. My rational brain knows that this decision will not diminish the bond I have with my child.

My rational brain knows but my heart is a slow learner. It abhors this impending change.

Not yet…

She’s too small.

Matthew 6:25-34:

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.