For the Life of us

I actually can't help but comment on a subject which frustrates me quite immensley. It was the topic of yesterday's Good Morining discussion and provoked quite a response from viewers.

For the past few days, out beautiful baby girl has been sick which has been an awful experience. Thank God, not too sick, just stuck with a cold. Meaning Abby and in turn myself, have got very little sleep over the past two days. It is the perfect home day today though. Waking up to a miserable, Gray looking day outside and turning on the weather channel to find out we can expect thunder later. I am quite looking forward to hanging out with Abigail today and Gavin later when he gets home from work this afternoon. I was flicking through a parents magazine yesterday at the doctor's office and found an article about babies that just cry all the time - how distressing that must be! Even just having Abby out of sorts and not settling nicely at night and being miserable during the day, made me count my blessings because usually she is an absolute angel! It is funny though that even though she is obviously not feeling nice, she is still smiling and laughing, even if it is with streamin...

If you had asked me as soon as up to one week ago, whether I would go back to work and stick my baby in daycare, you would have received a resounding 'definitely not!'. It has always been an issue I've felt very strongly about. In my opinion , unless you are genuinely unable to pay rent with one salary, the desire to live in luxury is a selfish one if it justifies putting your kids in childcare at such a young age. I am not an extreme mother and don't believe there is anything wrong with having a toddler at a daycare for a few hours a week to socialise them and allow yourself some sanity. My heart does break, however, at the scene that unfolds at the daycare next door each day. Car's start pulling in from around 7.30am and some littlies are only collected after 6pm and some even 7pm. Parents that would typically go home tired from work, put there children to bed and then wake up only to haul them back to childcare, leaving...

It is surprising at least, that I had any amount of profound thought from two days worth of daytime television. However, I did. Oprah, for two days in a row has had very sobering programmes of families who are so much less fortunate that mine. The first show featured a little girl, of seven, who suffered with schizophrenia. The parents chose to cope with it by living in two seperate apartments and raising their younger 'normal' child seperately and obviously living seperately at night, swapping and alternating each day. Living with such an intense love for their daughter yet having the daily stress of knowing she cannot be left alone or by herself with anyone else, is just mindblowing to imagine. The second Oprah show featured the stories of child after child who was abducted. Distraught parents, weary from the fight, some for 20 years now, begged fellow Americans to help them find their children. Parents who had last tucked their baby into bed and woken up to an empty cot, ano...