My daughter starts pre-school this week and I am not coping well. Today her school had a little picnic for everybody and it was...interesting. I was unaware how many single mothers there are at her school (and one who had on a ring but still got a little too friendly with me). The ex and I have agreed to do as many things as possible together when it comes to our girl's school; conferences, school functions, team sports should she decide to play any. But all of that is kind of in the future. Our togetherness now entails both seeing her off to school in the morning and both picking her up in the afternoon. Since the three of us arrived to this picnic together, it was assumed the ex and I were still a couple. Once word got out that we are no longer "together", the single moms felt the need to introduce themselves to me en masse. It was a little overwhelming. But a few of them seemed really nice. I left the mini-party early and am now bracing for the next phase of this schooling business. You know, the part that has me getting up relatively early and handing my kid off for four hours of the day. I joked with a friend that the only woman I've ever been able to fully commit to is about to leave me. And that has me...all kinds of sad and sentimental. Sad because I've truly enjoyed the toddler years and am not sure how to adjust to having a "kid" and sentimental for...well, the same reason I guess.
I despise change and there is plenty of it on the horizon. She's starting her school career and I'm starting a business and the kid, her mom and I are all starting a new schedule. Before my anemia, I could get through a day on a remarkably small amount of sleep. But now, even when I get a full eight hours I wake up fatigued the next day. I'm a total night owl and regularly stay up until one or two in the morning, usually because I have the luxury of sleeping until ten or eleven in the morning. My daughter is a big sleeper so even when I have her, I can still usually sleep until nine or so. But that's not gonna be the case anymore since we both have to be up early to get her to school. The wise thing to do would be to get to bed earlier, say around 10 or so, and get more rest. We'll see if it works out that way. On top of all this, both her mother and I are questioning if we want to stay in the city after she finishes pre-school. This isn't a conversation we would have been having a year ago but now we've both grown disenchanted with the scenery and the realization of what raising our daughter here would mean. It wouldn't be bad and it could still happen but the ex and I both grew up in houses with back and front yards, walking to and from school and we want that same experience for her. The problem with that is, even though we both want it, we're not sure how to achieve it. We'd have to agree where to move first and that could be complicated because of her work. I can work from anywhere, even once this business is up and running, but she probably won't be able to. Ideally, she would get her own gig up and running (something she is considering) and we could both be based anywhere. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. We have to put our attention on pre-school right now and any moves we make will have to wait until next summer. I kinda don't wanna let our girl go to school tomorrow.
