Learning to listen to a child…

I was the proud owner of a new business, my own boss. I thought it all out, more time at home, more time with my child, more time with my family. Now let me go ahead and bust the bubble. If you have a full-time brick and mortar service or retail oriented business that is successful or requires a certain amount of open hours then every client is your boss, you are not your own boss, you do not set your own hours.  Sure you can do those things, but if it doesn’t suit the clients they will find somewhere else to shop to suit their needs.

I didn’t want to make the same mistakes with my little that I had previous so since he loved his day care I let him still attend, but I got to drop him off usually and sometimes got to pick him up. He loved seeing me more and I felt that we were reconnecting and he was a lot happier. But I learned in my absence he was not as happy as he wants was at his daycare and before long I got a note that another child had bitten my child. It was a small bite and not very noticeable and I felt like the daycare had taken appropriate action, but I kept him out of “school” for a few days until I was sure. He went back to school and everything seemed fine, but before long the same child took a bite out of my sons scalp and all I got was a note. When asked what would be done, they said if it happens again they will place my son in a different classroom (a lower age group of children). Why my son, he didn’t bite anybody. They said they couldn’t put the biter in with younger children. For months my little one stayed with family or went to work with me. We tried to make it fun, but he would get bored be there on long days as my business we open 12 hours a day. It was incredibly stressful on all of us.

Time passed and I was told the daycare had a new owner/director and the biter was no longer there, so I he started to attend again, but my child was incredibly unhappy. I thought it was just because he had gotten used to being with me or with family. He would say he didn’t like the other kids, but I ignored his pleas because he was just acting like a “child” and got spoiled staying with me and family, plus this was normal, right? One day I went to pick him up early and my little was on the playground, but over in the corner and looked sadder then I have ever seen him in his whole life. He looked broken and fearful. I questioned his teachers to find out why he wasn’t playing with the other students. They said your child is really shy. I had seen my child interact with other children within our circle and complete strangers children at jungle gyms, my child was not shy. I told them, my child doesn’t have a shy bone in his body. They just struggled their shoulders. I questioned my child as to what was going on, but he said nothing. But the pleas not to go to school started getting even worse. A couple days later I got a call from one of the teachers at my sons school who said I am family of the owners of the daycare and I work here, but I felt you should know there are some bad things going on at this school that I don’t approve of but I need my job so I don’t say anything, but I your son is too sweet to be here and if it were my child I would get him out of here. I then talked to my son and determined he was being bullied and hurt by other students, but I honestly have no idea what was going on in that daycare/school.  I just know after removing my son, within no time the place was shutdown and I am uncertain why to this day.

I learned a valuable lesson from this. My child had something to say and I needed to work on our communication.

The Toddler Years

With the encouragement of others against my gut I placed my little guy in a local government funded (I paid, but some parents got to use the daycare services free paid by the government) daycare. The thought of doing so made me so nervous and out of sorts. But wasn’t this normal to ship your kids off to daycare? For me it didn’t feel natural, but my toddler loved it. He made friends, did arts and crafts, brought home things he made for mom and dad, was taking naps, which reaffirmed that everyone else was right and I was wrong.  This perceived thought led me to making my next big mistake.

Welcome to the Big City

 picture courtesy of: en.wikipedia.org

My baby was doing so well and he had started nursing less and less at a year and half old I got an infection which forced me to stop nursing and I felt a need to help my hubby pay the bills. Under the false reality that my child was in the best place he could be I took a big city job. I never realized how miserable this would make our family. I felt like I lost the connection with my son the moment I made that terrible decision. I stopped nursing and at the same time took a job that required that I had to take him to his grandparents, still asleep to his grandparents house at 5 am, I would carpool with the hubby to the city to work all day and fight traffic to and from, not getting home usually till 8 or 9 pm in the evening.

While we were at work my parents got to wake up with my little boy, dress him, feed him, play with him. Then they would take him to daycare where he would spend 4-7 hours of his day. Then my parents had the pleasure of picking him up, getting him a snack, asking him how his day was, watching him grow, feeding him dinner, playing with him, bathing him, changing his clothes and putting him to bed. By the time we got home usually my baby was asleep. This was our schedule pretty much 6 days a week, except my hubby got to be off with our son on Saturday. My child withdrew from me. He barely spoke to me. He wouldn’t come to me, he would barely look at me. He expressed in his own way that he was angry with me.  I was heartbroken, but still unclear what do and was advised it was just an adjustment and it would straighten itself out. As weeks of this turned into months this pain in my heart became unbearable. It had destroyed the connection I had with my baby, to the point I wondered if he would ever forgive me and/or reconnect with me. In addition, the strain started to affect my marriage as well. We barely spoke to and from work and I usually cried to and from because I missed my baby. My husband told asked me one day: “why are you doing this?”  I confessed that I would rather live in a tent in the woods then spend another week away from my child. He said: “Let’s get you out of the city”.  Almost overnight I was presented with a business offer in our local town and I accepted and put my notice in. Finally I was out, finally I could reconnect. I hoped it wasn’t too late.