My daughter has always been particularly articulate. She started talking at a young age and there have been many huge explosions in her vocabulary and comprehension since. The hubs and I are always blown away by her ability to communicate, though I suspect all people feel that way. Regardless, this kid can really tell you how she feels or what is bothering her. It is a blessing so much as it helps you manage her needs, and a curse in that sometimes, you just can’t make her understand so you just wind up feeling bad.
Lately in the mornings, our conversations are going something like this:
Us: Ok we’re almost at school little love, are you ready to see your school friends?
Everly: I go to school with my school friends and mommydaddy go to werk together
Us: Well sweetie, we drop you off together, but then we each go to our own place of work.
Everly: I go alone and you go together to werk.
Us: Well you go meet your school friends and teachers, then mommy goes to her office to work, and daddy goes to his office to work, and then we all come home.
Everly: You leave together, you go werk together. I alone. I want to werk with mommydaddy
Us: Oh hunny, trust me, you have much more fun at school than you would at work. We will see you later.
Everly: I see mah school friends and you go werk together?
"So what you're saying is, you spend all day together without me?"
Sigh. I mean, I can’t be 100% sure that she believes that we work together all day long, but this is the sense I get. From what I can tell, she believes that we drop her off so we can spend copious amounts of time together, but without her. It breaks my heart.
She has been to my office, but not to her dads. For most of the first year I was back to work, the hubs was home and sent us on our way every day. At that point, she thought we were all apart, but now, we do drop off together and so daddy and I leave her together. The part she is missing is where we go after that. We don’t even pick her up together, so on top of it all, I think she might think I leave daddy at work to take her home, and then she is looking for him and wondering why?
I know I can take her to my office, and then take her to her dads to show her and that could help. Overall though, we still give her the impression she is the only member of the family cast out all day.
I know this isn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone. Frankly I don’t know that it even registers on the scale of things that are no good. It’s just a thing that has been happening for awhile in the mornings now, and it makes me sad. I really don’t want her to think that we’re just opting out of being around her. That we are choosing to leave her so we can be together. That we’re off enjoying our days while she is, well off enjoying her day, just without us. This comes up with sleeping too; she legitimately cannot understand why we get to sleep together when she gets to sleep alone and honestly, I just don’t have a great answer for that. We tell her that her bed is just for her and her sleep friends, that mommy and daddy’s bed is bigger blah blah blah but, she solves that problem by offering to sleep with daddy in mommydaddy’s bed, while mommy sleeps in hers. Size problem solved, right? I don’t dare get into the reasons why married people share beds, because she’s 2 and at some point I’m babbling away and she’s plotting on how to shut me up by peeing on the floor. I digress.
In any event, it just bums me out a little. She loves loves LOVES to go to school, she loves her friends and teachers, and I do think she enjoys that that time is hers and she’s able to be independent. I just wish she could understand that we go to work, separately, because we have to. I am 100% confident in our choice to be a 2 working parent family, but in these moments, I can’t help but wonder if she feels less important than she is. I know she is too young to comprehend that we both work for her benefit, and there is nothing I can do to get her to understand. I just wish I could.
What do your kids think you’re doing when they are being cared for by someone else? Do they ever make comments like this? Do they think you’re off eating ice cream on a giant slide full of glitter and lollipops while they suffer through another art project with coffee filters, or do they not really even think about where you are?
You know, I’ve never asked my kids where they think we go all day…they’ve been to each of our workplaces, so I guess I *think* they know…? Annika asks every morning “who’s taking care of us today?” even though it’s the same schedule week after week.
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They also have each other, so maybe they think/know you’re the ones missing out?
Brandee recently posted..Confidence in Our Parenting
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My daughter (3.5) wakes every morning and asks where are we going. The answer is always the same. You and brother are going to school and I’m going to work. A lot of mornings, she asks where daddy is. Again, same answer, he’s at work. He is gone before she ever wakes up. My daughter has been in the same daycare since 7 weeks old. She has also been to work with me and has seen her daddy on his tractor at work. He is a operator for our highway department so we get to see him when he cuts grass by daycare.
Cue happy girl. LOL She often tells me when she gets bigger she’s going to go to my work and brother is going to go to daddy’s work. So it really gets her when I say “mommy works in construction. Brother can work at my work too.” Pre-schooler brain explosion…. Then starts the whole conversation on why mommy works with a lot of boys. Don’t get me started on the bed…recently i was told her bed was no fun and mine was. And last night, she slept with us. Why? Because after being gone to work all day and dance that evening, I couldn’t break away from that sweet angel putting her arm around my neck and squeezing me. 
too much sweetness. now tonight is a different story…mommy is tired!
Twitter: melissamott
Ha, it’s like trying to answer one question just creates a spiral of others. Toddlers, they are too darling.
Brandee recently posted..Confidence in Our Parenting
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We haven’t had this conversation yet, but I have thought about what “work” means to Baguette. We tell her that we go to “work,” but I also tell her that Daddy is “working” in the back yard when he’s using power tools. It occurred to me that she may be quite confused about what “work” means and where it takes place for us.
Or she may not care. There’s always that.
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Mine may not really care either. It could be that I’m playing into it, so she’s using it. Who knows. She always tells us she has to go to work too, then lays on the couch lol.
Brandee recently posted..Confidence in Our Parenting
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My heart just broke a little for you. You are such a good mama to recognize that she wants to go to school and that it’s so good for her – even though it’s terribly hard to hear her talking about being alone.
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I think she’s ok, I just never really anticipated this exactly 
Twitter: Babe_Chilla
Toddlers are weird. What is funny is K and I DO go to work together. I mean we don’t hang out all day together but we work at the same place, just seperate buildings. Landon knows where my office is and where Kevin’s is. He is very proud that he can point to them. Even more of a mind explosion is that I actually keep toys in my office for when he has come to hang out for a bit…so he knows there are fun things IN there but he has never said anything to this fact. Or maybe it is coming…with tears. Oy
And I am now reminding myself now that the baby will come to work with me too. Double Oy.
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