Amusement Park of Life

I have been thinking about how crazy life is lately.  You've got lots of ups and lots of downs - just like all those crazy rollercoasters that I was ALWAYS talked into riding.

The first ride that you jump on is the Childhood Choo Choo.  You have lots of ups - learning how to do cartwheels in the yard with your best friends from down the street, playing outside until you get called in for dinner, family vacations at the beach, and getting your very first puppy.  You also have lots of downs - getting slapped by your Kindergarten teacher for crying a lot and forgetting your ice cream money (true story), falling off your bike and getting some nasty scars, being constantly annoyed by your siblings, and that whole awkward middle school time.  In between you have day to day life, which for me was pretty awesome.  My childhood ride (as far as I remember it), had lots more ups than it did downs - just as a kiddie ride should.  It is not fair, though, that some people have to ride much scarier childhood rides before they hit the height requirement. : (

After the Childhood Choo Choo, you jump onto the Teen Tumbler.   Things are getting a little more dramatic now and your ups are higher and your downs are lower and they happen much more frequently.  You click, click, click, click up to your new boyfriends, your license, your sports teams, and your awesome mission trips with all of your faves from youth group.  You then dive down to disses from your best friend on the forum, being tricked into talking trash about your friend who is silently listening to everything on a three-way call, and break ups with your whack boyfriends.  Most people are pretty fortunate to make it through the Teen Tumbler with all of their spare change still in their pockets.

Next is the Adult Avenger.  Your ups and downs are a little bit less frequent now as things are starting to kind of even themselves out, but the highs and lows can still be pretty extreme.  Your highs consist of four awesome years of college, getting your first big girl/boy job, becoming completely independent, and meeting the love of your life.  The lows on this ride consist of being completely independent (financially), bills, money, (you get the point!), and having to make really big decisions that have real big boy/big girl repercussions.

Part of this ride takes your straight into Wedding World.  On this part of the ride you click, click, click your way up to the wonderment of getting engagement, finding the perfect wedding dress, celebrating with everyone you love in your life, and the ultimate high of saying 'I do' to the one you love most in the world.  The drops on this ride come from having to figure out who to invite and who to not invite, arguments about details (that in the end are not all that important), and stress about getting it all done in time.  The actual wedding day is the highest part of this ride.  You ride this high through the ceremony, the bomb diggity ass reception and after party, and through the honeymoon.  After that you ride one of the biggest drops as you get back to reality and settle out at a pretty happy place with your new spouse.

After you ride that train for a while, you then land in Mommy Land.  This is what got me thinking about all of this craziness.  In Mommy Land you have the clicks that get you up to the positive pregnancy test, the wang-a-lang or wagina on the ultrasound, the amazing birth of your little one that is one of the highest points on this entire ride, and watching the sweet baby sleep and later smile and laugh at you.  The drops (that I have been through so far) are watching your baby get shots and cry a cry you have never heard, hear your baby waking up right as you are finally really falling asleep, and having to go back to work after weeks at home with her.

I have ridden the beginning of this Mommy Land ride and so far I have clicked myself so close to heaven I can almost spread those clouds apart and peak in and see what it is like up there!  I have the sweetest little girl that I am completely in love with and who brings so much joy in my life.  I have had an entire summer to collect every bit of sugar and slobbery kisses that I can - and I have done just that.  Then the part of the ride called Dreaded Daycare interrupted my bliss.  This is what this part of the ride has been like for me:

click, click, click

I have someone great lined up.  I am currently pregnant and have already talked to the lady and reserved my spot and she sounds perfect.  We are all set to go.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We go to visit her two and a half weeks before school starts.  She tells us she won't do a schedule.  I shrug it off, but call her the next day to ask her about it.  She is quite rude (must have been having a bad day because this was totally different than every time I've talked to her) and lets me know that she is not willing to work with me at all.

 click, click, click

I call Jason, he comes home, and he tells me that we are going to look and find somewhere and we'll be fine.  We find somewhere on line, call and schedule an appointment for the next day, and they have one spot open.  We go to visit them and everything is fine.  They say what we want to hear and we tell them that we will let them know the following Monday.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot sleep.  I go into a mini-depression.  I keep picturing my sweet girl trying to sleep under bright lights with lots of babies around and crying and crying because their aren't enough hands to help her.  I cry and cry the more I picture it and I know I just can't do it.  Not sure what other options we have, but we are going to look.

click, click, click

I find some more places online.  I call a few - 20+ people waiting lists.  Shit.  I call another place - a 5-star ranked center.  They happen to have an open slot.  I go and visit them and my heart is once again in a good place with all of this.  They are so warm and sweet with the kids and they have a very good ratio of kids to adults.  I am at peace with the fact that this is where my little girl will go.  I enjoy the next two weeks of my summer and soak in all I can. 



aaa!!!

I think (hope) this is going to be a little drop and then we'll be up from here.  Tomorrow is D-day.  Tomorrow I will load Caroline and all of her stuff up and I will drop her off with her new caregivers.  I will make sure everything is where it needs to be and that they know everything I want for them to know about her and then I will give her a kiss goodbye and I will head to work, praying that she is in the best hands she can be in that are not mine or her Daddy's. 

click, click, click

I will go to work and not be able to get my mind off of her, but I will see good friends, sit through our opening meeting, start to get my room like I want it, and then I will HAUL ASS to Caroline's 'school' (I know it isn't technically school, but it makes it easier for me to say that she is at school rather than at daycare), pick her up and give her a hundred kisses.  Ninety-nine of those will be because I will be making up for lost time and the last one will be because we made it through our first day.

And then I really do believe that the rest of the ride, for the most part, will be ups.  We'll get comfortable, they will learn her, and she will begin to learn lots of new things.  I know we will have a few dips along the way, but we'll roll with them and climb up to the next peak.

Life is crazy and up and down, but I plan on riding this roller coaster as long as I can and I can't wait to see what other crazy things I will click up to and what other drops I will get myself out of!