Just Can’t Please Me–#WeeklySmile

Yup, that’s right! This week’s smile is going to make YOU smile, too. As many of you are aware, I have been babysitting three of my grandchildren since they moved thirtyish miles away in early September because my daughter had not been able to set up daycare. The babysitting had me driving back and forth between the two cities several times a day then around November it became easier (and cheaper) to go over on Sunday evening and stay until Friday evening, unless I had an appointment back near me. It was exhausting, physically and mentally. Several times she said she was setting up daycare so I would only need to watch the kids for her a couple of days a week. I was looking forward to that then she announced that the woman that was going to watch the kids had decided to go back to work instead so I lost hope!

Then, last week, out of the blue she said she had found a place that might have openings for all three of the kids and she was going to go visit to see what it was like. I had heard it before so I sort of ignored it. That afternoon I got a text message saying all three of the kids were starting day care at the same center on Monday and it would be full time, five days a week. Wow!

I hadn’t expected that. It gave me just one more day of watching them before the weekend and then the Monday they started at the center. I cried. It kind of made me feel like I was no longer wanted or needed. I know it was silly but it just threw me! After the first couple of days, I realized I was being silly. Here I was feeling upset about finally getting a change in the situation that had been exhausting to me for months. So I not only smiled at myself, I laughed at myself.

They started daycare this past Monday and aside from a bit of a rough time getting used to a new schedule (they have to get up about two hours earlier than when I watched them) all three of the kids like it. Right now the boys are only there in the morning until the school bus picks them up because my daughter picks them up about ten minutes after they are dropped off after school but when she begins her new job in three weeks, she will be picking them up later than now because of different work hours and a longer commute. All is fine. This week I’ve actually been over there twice anyway; once because she had an after work appointment and once because it was my daughter’s birthday so we went out to dinner. So I’m still seeing them and still needed (in fact, I am babysitting them tonight so she can go out to celebrate her birthday with friends). Silly me to think I wasn’t needed anymore!

Trent over at Trent’s World hosts a weekly blog hop called The Weekly Smile where he asks us to write about one thing that made us smile during the week. Go check it out!