Dear N-,
You're 10 and a half months now. Well, just a week shy of 11 months. You're gorgeous and sweet and quite the handful to take care of. You crawl SO fast and are just a breath away from walking. Already you have such a distinctive personality. You're stubborn and intensely curious. You're affectionate and friendly. You're smart and fearless.
This past week, I started work again after nearly a year of caring for you. And it was so very difficult to bring you to daycare every morning. The woman who takes care of you, Mrs. Freeman, is a nice lady and wants good things for you. But it's difficult for me to let you go. I want to stay home with you. I want to be the one who feeds you and plays with you and gets you to sleep. I trust her to take care of you, but it just doesn't seem right that she gets to see you for 10 hours a day, and I get to see you for a couple hours in the morning and at night and... that's it. We sleep and the day starts and it's the same thing all over again. It makes it feel like someone else is raising you, and to a certain extent, she is. She's there to see it all, while I go to work.
Still, it's a necessity. I want what's best for you, and right now, I can't provide that at home with you. At least, I don't think I can. I don't even know if this is the right thing to do, but I know we can't stay here in your grandmother's home forever. You need a place where you are free to roam without my worrying about whether you'll fall down stairs, or start biting kitty toys, or play with a filthy train set. You need a place away from your grandmother, who also wants what's best for you, but spoils you. You may not like it now, but you need some structure and discipline, and you simply don't get it here.
I need to help your father provide for you, and I can't do it from home. I can provide for you physically that way, but there's so much more that we need to become independent. We need space, and we can't get it here in this little room we live in together.
But I hate this. I hate knowing that, come Monday, your father and I will head to the train station, and leave you behind for some other person to care for you. I feel like I should be here, to watch you in these precious few moments of your babyhood, so be the one constant you can always count on. I love you, and it is SO difficult leaving you behind every day. Every moment of my workday this past week was just waiting and waiting for the time when I could come home and see you again. Even if you can be difficult sometimes, even if you try my patience, you are worth every frustration I have. You are one of my favorite people in the whole world, and I would do anything for you.
I want to try to work from home. I've got to get things rolling so that I can be with you throughout your childhood. I want to be here. I don't want to be just a phone call away. I want to be mere steps away, to see you through your first few years of life. I can work away from the house when you're at school. Right now, though, I want to be home. I don't know how successful I'll be. Your grandma and grandpa, my parents, often tell me to say I'll be successful, to think positively, and then good things will happen. Maybe it will work. I'm willing to give anything a try. I want this - to care for you myself - badly enough to try almost anything to stay at home with you. So, to this I say:
I wish to work from home and make a decent income, so that I can stay home to care for my son.
Here's hoping it works, kiddo. I am completely in love with the little person you've turned out to be, and I want to be here for everything you do.
Love always,
Mom
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