Today marks the end of Reid's second week at day care. He goes to Ms. Leonor Mendoza's house every morning around 8:15 and gets picked up around 5:20. It's strange, because we have spent so much time with him, every once in a while I wonder what he's doing right then, because every second of every day before November 3, I knew, or K knew, but one of us was there.

It's also a little troubling, because the reality is that this is the rest of our life forever. We will wake up, we will get ourselves and our child presentable for a trip to the world outside, and then he will go one place and we will go to other places, and we won't see each other for hours. We won't know what the other is doing any more than I know what you're doing right now. This will be the condition for the next 17 and a half years, and then he will probably go somewhere where we won't know what he's doing ever. (Shudder.)

But the day care world for a little baby isn't that different from the one Reid lived in before. He probably watches Sesame Street, plays with toys, cries some, eats some, sleeps some, and repeats until K shows up. Ms. Mendoza sometimes takes the kids for walks, and her backyard probably has some playspace, though it seems that it is always raining or cold these days...

Anyhow, our new life with daycare reminds me oddly of early life in my childhood home with my sisters and mom. K and I get up hours early, sometimes a little earlier if Reid so demandeth. His sleep is better some days, worse others, but he has demonstrated an ability — which hasn't quite mastered — to put himself back to sleep after giving a couple groans of middle-sleep. So on an average night, Reid will go to bed around 9:30, and K and I will creep around our increasingly creaky old house brushing teeth, washing faces, letting out the dog, taking our contact lenses and doing everything else while trying not to wake the boy. By the time we're done with all these operations, it's ten or ten-thirty, and we are (or at least K, for whom sleep is an addictive elixir, is) fully exhausted. Reid wakes up either at 2 or 4, and downs 6 ounces of milk/formula. Sometimes, he wakes up earlier, and, since he's not hungry, K and I debate about how to discourage ourselves from going in to make sure he's okay.

I almost always get up. But we're really trying to sleep train the boy, so no lectures. I'll stop getting up soon.

So we wake up at 6, if the boy hasn't jumped the gun a little already. If he's sleeping, we head downstairs, like ghosts getting ready for our day, silently preparing bottles of formula, taking showers and brushing teeth again. I shower and dress while K eats breakfast and makes lunch for us both. Then Reid awakens, and (hopefully) I'm dressed and I can take him while K showers and dresses. I entertain him, artfully attempting to keep my clothes clean and dry. Then K heads off to work, and I feed Reid, and I begin the frenetic, Jerry Lewis-like preparation for taking Reid to day care and getting myself to work:
pack my bag (lunch, Style section)
pack Reid's bag (clean bottles, extra baby-whatnots)
put bags outside front door (it's very hard to leave with the baby in the carseat and two bags on the shoulders)
put baby gate at top of stairs to prevent dog from eating all the pants and toilet paper in the house
put coat on baby
put hat on baby
put baby in carseat
take hat off baby because placement in carseat has forced hat over his eyes causing him to scream bloody murder
attempt to replace hat on baby without eliciting screams
curse hat under breath
put coat on me
unlock car
put keys in door (to prevent fumbling for keys on porch)
get carrot for now-neglected dog
give dog carrot
close and lock front door
put baby into car
get two bags from porch
put bags in car
go to Ms. Mendoza's house.

Every day. For years to come. I'm tired just thinking about it.