Monday, April 20, 2009

The Girls At Work

A couple weeks ago (Good Friday) most of the schools and daycares were closed so Coco (the owner of Coco Bonbons...read more about her here) and I brought our girls to work with us. Phoebe and Maison are exactly one year apart, Phoebe being one year older than Maison. (Their birthdays were yesterday actually...more on that to come.) The girls had so much fun together. Here they are mixing up something sweet to eat:

(Phoebe is wearing the Maison Blue Flower Skirt and Maison is wearing the Josie Cupcake Knit Dress)

Maybe they had too much fun. Maison wouldn't let me go the following Monday when I tried to drop her off at daycare and I ended up bringing her to work with me again. Now Moms, don't be too hard on me here. I usually would not give in and bring Maison to work. I believe in sticking to my guns and not allowing Maison to manipulate me, but I also try to make sure I'm seeing the big picture and listening to my daughter. Normally she would not hold on to me and cry for me to stay when I drop her off. So a red flag went up and instead of getting frustrated and making it about me ("I need to get to work...I'm going to be late..."), I quickly tried to figure out why she was behaving this way. I stopped trying to rush and really listened to what she was saying. I then realized she was not throwing a tantrum. She was genuinely sad and those were real tears. Then it dawned on me. Duh. Her Dad had moved back that weekend and she spent a lot of time with him that she normally would have spent with me. (Her Dad had been in another state for almost 2 years, still seeing Maison, but not as often as either of them would have liked due to the cost of travel.) It was also Easter weekend, so we were fairly busy and out of our normal routine. After thinking about what a weekend that must have been for her, I knew Maison just needed her Mom at that moment. So, I made the decision I felt was best for my daughter, and in spite of the frowns I received from some of the staff (I don't fault them for the frowns...I understand that to an outsider it looked like I had just majorly given in to a tantrum), I took Maison's coat back off the hook I'd just placed it on and said "Okay, you can spend the day with Mommy today." She went to daycare the next day without any trouble at all.

I am very thankful that I work in an environment that allows me to make the best decisions for my daughter at a moment like that! I used to work for a big corporation and never could have done that. Any parent who has kids in daycare has had rough mornings when you have to leave while your child is crying for you. It's one of the toughest things working parents (and the kiddos) have to go through. How do you deal with those tough days?

6 comments:

OLLIE MCKAY'S ~ A Chic Boutique said...

Really cute daughters!! And, ya know. . . Moms usually instinctivly know what the right thing to do is - as you showed by knowing that you needed to bring them to work with you - way to go!! Have a good week and Happy Monday!

KatBouska said...

I am SOOOO lucky that I get to stay home with my kids AND work at the same time. When parents leave their kids with me on tough mornings like that I feel awful for them!! I can only imagine how hard it must be to leave them when they're like that. I applaud you. :)

frogglet said...

That is so great, you have a wonderful employer. The girls are too cute playing at Mommys' work.

Anonymous said...

What a good mom you are. You're right, a lot of people would have been too rushed to access the situation. That speaks volumes of your character to be able to analyze things so quickly.

Unknown said...

They are so precious! Look slike they had alot of fun. I went to work with my mom a couple of times when I was little. Oh, and I loved going to hang out at my dad's shop, play with the tools and get all messy hehe. Then I'd go in the stock room and rummage through all the paper and pens ;)

Unknown said...

I like that cupcake set too, as you can tell from my review set and my WW today I'm a little obsessed with cupcakes LOL
BTW, we have tried cupcake shaped meatloaf, it goes over pretty well actually LOL