Remind me of this when he's a teenager. Strangely enough, D's first day at his part-time day care--today--was neither really easy (as I expected) nor really difficult (as I had been warned). It was pretty much like any other day.

I took him into Mishkan Torah Nursery School, which is walking distance from the house. I walked, he strolled. He's been very reluctant to walk in all this heat lately, so, stroller it was. When we got to the door, I took him out of the stroller and he walked right in. So far, so good. He's certainly been to classes and the like before, but I was always there with him. When he realized I was leaving... well, that's when the crying started.

Fortunately (as I had to remind myself, again and again), the teachers were professionals, and D wasn't the first kid who had trouble the first day. But it was much harder to leave than I expected. I thought I'd be jumping for joy in my newfound freedom. Instead, I had a little knot in my stomach that didn't dissipate until I picked him up two and a half hours later.

He was still crying as I arrived, by the way. I was told he did quite well, actually, but as far as I was concerned, he could have been crying the whole time.

Then, I figured, since I had been alone for a good long time, the afternoon would be much easier to handle. Well, it wasn't, not really--I still had to try to make him nap to get some peace, and when he didn't, I still felt exhausted and beaten. We ordered a pizza for dinner, which we can't really afford to do. But I couldn't deal with cooking, not with the heat. Yet I had had a break.

Maybe, all this time, I've been too hard on myself. I thought that I simply didn't have enough stamina to handle D. Maybe it's better than that; maybe I don't have the stamina for life in general.

He's in bed as I write this, in the room next door... talking to himself. He's still saying farewell to a little girl in his class... "Goodbye, Clementine."

See, with all the exhaustion and trouble and misbehavior (really, not all that much), he's still the light of my life, and seeing him laugh, or point at K's belly and say "That's the baby," reminds me that I am glad I'm here to watch him grow up.