I Love you but GHHYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

So... in the continuing saga of husband vs. wife hi-jinks....

It's been a nice relaxing summer - one devoted mostly to father-son bonding and house maintenance (not in a manly home improvement kind of way... more of a strangely zen gender role reversal vacuuming, dishwashing and laundry kind of way). But as the leaves begin to... well in Southern California I suppose they stay the same color.. but... *ahem* anyway, as Autumn starts peeking around the corner - I start gearing myself up for another round of work... and both my spouse and I prepare our almost-one-year-old angel for another round of day care.

Now, if you read my previous posts about day care issues, you know it's been a tricky subject for us: Family vs. 'strangers' - Loss of Parental Bonding Time versus non-stop infections..... I mean, it's been hard. Of course it's hard, that's what we signed on for when we wanted to have a kid... right?

Well, at the on-set of Summer, my wife wanted to look into a more private day-care situation: she'd pretty much had it with the bi-monthly ear infection that forced us to send little Cameron off to live with his grandparents (and aunt - and uncles - and cousins) for a week at a time... (well, not that it was easy for me, but I accepted it as a necessary evil - after all we were warned about the pitfalls of day care). So we got referred by a friend to a local woman, Nadia, who runs a licensed operation out of her home: four kids at a time, max. She's nice - if not a little exotic. her English is a little sketchy and it's hard to understand her on the phone... still our friends love her so we decided to give her a visit.

Afterwords my wife was pretty positive about the whole thing - the only down side at the time was that Cameron's pick up time would back-up by about a half hour making both of us reorganize a little to get to him on time. The good news is that she was closer to my work - and being that I would be the one going to get him most of the time... well it would be a little easier.

Anyway, we were all handshakes and smiles that day. I kind of figured we'd hash out the details sometime before September and put it out of my mind... temporarily. Well, our "sometime before September" has pretty much expired, and we're still sitting on the paperwork - which is not that big of a deal - we can still get it in this week... but...

About two weeks ago, my wife started having second thoughts. Which is... okay... so she has second thoughts: What if Cameron wonn't getg as much social stimulation? What if this lady can't give him enough attention? What if... what if... what if.... You know how it goes.

She went as far as to call our old day care facility and asked about re-enrolling him. They had room. I reminded her of the reasons that we left them in the first place - nothing that was really their fault - but the constant infections (and the complaining about them) was endless. She seemed relieved to have found a place that would free us from that burden.

Well... she was relieved three months ago... Now the "What ifs" were coralling her back to St. Sniffles Day Care. The LAST thing that I wanted was to get back to the frequent doctors appointments and antibiotic prescriptions... and dear God the way she agonized over it... I just wanted her to be sure.

Is this what you really want?

"Well, maybe his immune system has gotten stronger."

How much do you want to bet on that?

........

Okay look, if you're not comfortable with Nadia, then lets not do it.

"What do we tell her?"

What do YOU want to tell her? - you're the one who wasn't worried about breaking the verbal agreement. (probably not my best moment here)

....(death stare)....

I think she took it all to mean that I really wanted to go with Nadia. And.. I.. well not really, it's just... I want her to be sure and. Well, maybe it's a "guy" thing, but once I kind of settle on something I don't re-think it much, and being forced to change gears at the last minute is really grating on my system. I mean - I know that whatever is best for Cameron is really all that is important but... couldn't we have figured that out a little sooner?

And maybe it's a petty thing, but I really didn't want to be the one to call Nadia back and tell her that the deal was off. That's mostly because I was the one calling her in the last few weeks, arranging to pick up the application and... well.. giving the impression that we were a done deal. I'd feel like a major flake - doing an abrupt 180 spin like that... and I wouldn't mind that so much except that I wasn't the one who yanked the wheel... I'm just the one caught between the gears and the road.

Anyway - we went back and forth like three times, and I was getting ready to poke my eye with a pencil or something. Today alone we fip-flopped twice and...

GYYYYAAAAAAHHHHH ! ! ! !

At this point I was getting ready to send him on tour with the circus, just to put it to rest. And here's the thing that really wrenched me up inside... she's the one with all the doubts, but she wants me to be the one to call Nadia and straighten it out...or call it off.

Now friends, it isn't that I don't want to man-up and.... okay, I admit - I don't have the guts to call Nadia either. But being that I don't have the same concerns my wife does - I don't feel like I would represent very well. I'd probably work some deal out with Nadia that my wife would never go for - or I'd fail to ask "the obvious question" or several of them for that matter... I just... I just...

I hate being caught in the middle!

The only thing I feel good about in this whole interaction is that I told her that. Whether or not I'm just weaseling out of a difficult spot - at least I was honest about how I felt... whatever that is worth.

We managed to not yell at each other but... well she finally relinquished and agreed to be the person who called with the questions but she didn't like it.... She also declared that I would be the one to plow through the rest of the paperwork, which I am happy to do. But I know she's not going to trust me with it and will go over all of it with a fine tooth comb anyway. That's what she does.

So we're moving forward but... yeah... I'll have to let you know whether it blows over or if today's friction will lead to some fun times ahead.