The Trailer

This is Davy's "school"--The Trailer. You can see Ms. G in the back wiping his bum. :) There are 7 babies that are loved on here by 4 wonderful ladies from the Philippines.

When I found out that I was pregnant, all I could think about for a while was the unfortunate timing in regards to my mat leave. As much as we needed to leave QSI and move on, they do have an amazing maternity leave policy in that you can take off as much time as you want, and then go back to work part-time. It seemed a cruel stroke of fate that we had literally just (2 weeks previous to finding out the news) accepted jobs with a traditional mat leave of 10 weeks off, then back to work full time. I had trouble getting excited about the baby because I obsessed so much on "having" to go back to work.

When I wrote K, my new buddy at AIS-R, and expressed my concerns, she told me about The Trailer, the on-site daycare at the school. She had nothing but wonderful things to say about it, and tried to assure me that everything was going to work out. Then later, when we arrived in Riyadh, all the moms with babies told me more about how great the daycare was. I still didn't really get it, though.

Turns out that I actually only had 8 weeks at home, since Davy insisted on taking his sweet time coming out. And it sucked dropping him off that first day, I'm not going to lie. But, then I started to understand what on-site daycare means for working moms. Most of all, it means that I don't really have to miss him. He is no more than a 4 minute walk away at all times, and I still get to feed him close to 100% of the time. I rarely go more than 3 hours without seeing him, and I'm often there to see his sweet smile when he's waking up. I get to smother him with kisses every time I visit him, and squeeze his squishy cheeks. When I have to leave him, I hand him off to one of his adoring teachers, who is always happy to get her hands on him again.

Going back and forth to The Trailer is not easy. I miss out on prep time, eat on the run, and don't have much extra time to help struggling students. All the same, I think it is the ideal set-up for an imperfect situation. The best part is that Davy is most certainly happy. He is constantly stimulated by his baby buddies and the environment, and is truly loved by his teachers. Really, we are so lucky!