Homeschooling Grandparents

I just read an interesting entry about grandparents who homeschool their grandkids. What an amazing idea!

Of course, that's the root of my quandaray, really. In order to be able to afford homeschooling (that is, me quitting my job and having the family rely on one income), I need to move away from my parents. There's no way we could afford it out here in Silicon Valley.

That's probably the number one reason we haven't moved yet. I can't imagine being away from my parents, who are two of my absolute best friends. And great parents. And excellent drop-of-the-hat babysitters. I love to watch my mom play with my kids. I can't imagine interfering with that wonderful relationship. Or my relationship with them. And, now that they are getting older, I just want to be there to support them if they ever ever ever need it at all.

But staying here for them means sending the kids to public school. In California. Gah. If I want them to see a half decent school, it means moving to ultra yuppieville. Not only do I not want to pay that kind of money on a house (renting, that is, I could never afford a $2 million home), I don't really want to live around a lot of the people who live there. Not to mention, it means giving up on owning a house.

Life has too many difficult decisions. All I know is I can't stay at my present job. I won't really go into details (I have no desire to Dooce myself!), but I really just don't like it, despite the excellent pay, benefits, and perks it has. The project is just too demoralizing.

The Mommy Smell

Chaotic Mom over at Chaotic Home has a post about Febreeze and how:

When mom's have babies, they're told their babies know their own mommy's smell. Let's be honest, this "smell" is really a mommy "stench" because Mommy is too tired to take a shower some days.

I was just thinking about this yesterday. My kids just started daycare/preschool in preparation for me going back to work on Friday. (And yes, it's tearing me up inside and I hate this. Ugh. It doesn't help that my job isn't on my "fun" list right now either... but I'm not going to say anything else about that and inadvertantly dooce myself.)

One of the sort of silly things that actually really bugs me so much about an infant in daycare is how when I pick my baby up at the end of the day, she (and before same with my son) doesn't smell right. She smells like some other woman, or her dryer sheets or something. It really stabs me deep in my heart and makes me want to cry right on the spot. I can hardly wait to get home and give her a bath or change her clothes or just et her all stinky with ME smell.

I don't know if it's a subconscious hormonal animal reaction, or if it's because just knowing she smells like someone else reminds me that someone else spent the day holding her, and rocking her, and feeding her, and it wasn't me. Someone else got to see her smiles, hear her coos, and be the center of her world. And that kills me.

But I've survived this before. My son started daycare even younger than she did, and he's still fiercely addicted to me. I'm not really worried that she's going to bond with someone else more than me. I just ache to be with her. It just feel horrible to be apart, and when she smells wrong it 's just being smacked in the face even harder with a constant reminder that I wasn't there.