First Day of Summer

I drove through the rain at 6:45 this morning as lightning flashed from the sky to the ground. I drove not to work or to shop or to a gym but rather to meet my one year old grandon's other grandma for the exchange. My son had called last Monday and asked if I could pick Rylan up from his daycare, they suspected that he had pink eye and I said "of course!" It is one of the largest daycares in Springfield. I entered the building easily...no doorbell, no buzzing in, no security. I was rudely greeted at the front desk and told to wait while she got the director. The director led me down a long hallway explaining that they thought he might have, suspected it could be, not certain but maybe pink eye. I entered his room and found him incarcerated in a crib, peering at me through wooden bars. Not one of the women in the room, his daycare providers, spoke to me. I retrieved him and his bag and took him to an urgent care directly across the street. The doctor there informed that they often have outbreaks of pink eye! After receiving prescriptions and instructions, I carried him through the parking lot and buckled him into his car seat. I thought about the amount of times he had been ill throughout the year and I said to him and to myself "you are not going back there!"

So here we are...he and I...him and me...just the two of us. Playing in the yard and going for walks down our country lane. Picking flowers and talking to butterflies. Splashing in puddles and digging for worms.

My back is a little tired and I am behind on my laundry, just like I was 24 years ago when I stayed home with his dad and his uncle. I am also behind on my work which I am attempting to do through phone calls and e-mails. I am to keep him through the summer. He will enter a new, smaller, high security day care in the fall, but I am not going to think about that right now. For now, I am going to sort blocks, change diapers, sing lullabys and watch a baby grow...the rest of the world can wait!