My Tiny Humans: Running out of Wednesdays

As I write this, I have 13 Wednesdays left with the eldest tiny human – don’t worry, it’s nothing sinister; you see, Wednesday is our ‘mummy and tiny humans’ day off together. There’s no kindy or childcare and the three of us spend the day doing things together.

But I recently realised as we began our transition to prep process with the primary school my son will be attending next year, that our weekly day off together was going to end soon – in a mere 13 Wednesdays!

I’ve been guilty at times of wishing a Wednesday away, particularly if there have been some toddler meltdowns – particularly during lockdowns – and then immediately feeling remorse about that. But realising the limited number of days left with my kindy kid before he heads to ‘big school’ really stopped me in my tracks.

These days together are different to weekends together. Wednesdays are my only day left since gradually increasing my return to work after maternity leave.

Of course, I’ll still have the day, for now, with my daughter as she’ll still have Wednesday off. But losing these days with my son feel like I really have to say goodbye to his babyhood – the early years.

I’m thankful I’ve been fortunate enough over the past almost five years to have varying periods of time at home with him (and more recently, my daughter). With all the reading I do and the information I’ve learnt here at work, I have a better understanding of how important the first five years are in child development. For the tiny human household, that meant a balance of being at home with me as the primary caregiver and attending an early learning centre, and it seems to have worked well for us.