Day One

My wife's first day back to work in five months. Leaving home for her was nearly as tough as labor. She actually tried to leave three separate times this morning before she actually, physically, departed us.

The girls were good to me. Their mom, before she went to work and while I was out of the room, pleaded with the eldest to treat dad nicely. To cooperate.

"I am cooperating," the eldest said twice today.

She was.

Paige was, too. She fell asleep just as we entered the library for toddler storytime, which Claire ate up. She jumped around. She clapped. She answered the storyteller's questions. Paige, meanwhile, slept like, well, a baby.

Later, at home, they both went down for naps at the same time.

Even later, Claire amazingly followed my directions. I told her to leave me and Paige alone and play outside on the swings. I was trying to quietly rock Paige to sleep at the time.

Not a bad day.

Funny, though. Early this morning, I found myself outnumbered at the park. In several ways.

I took the girls to our favorite greenspace a block from our house. Claire climbed the gym and the rocks. Paige hung out in the stroller.

Soon, three other women each with a toddler came along. All three, it turned out, weren't moms.

They were nannies.

"Oh really," one said to the other. "Which agency did you go through."

"I met the family on Sunday," said another. "They were soooo great. They want me fulltime. And it's great 'cause it pays really well."

At one point, one of the children fell from a rock, scraped her knee and burst into tears. Her nanny didn't see it because she was talking to me.



Later, back home, while she was swinging, Claire told me, "I pushed that girl off the rock."

"You did!?!?" I said, trying not to show my alarm.

"Yes," she said.

"What happened when you did that?" I asked, bending down and looking her square in the eyes.

"She fell down and scraped her knee," she said. "And she cried."

"I'll bet," I said. "That hurt her."

"Yeah."

"What could you have said to make her feel better," I asked.

"I sorry."

"That's right. I wish you would have said that."

"Yeah."

We hugged. She can be a devil. But she's learning to repent.