An Ending And An Opportunity

Today marks the last day that Ezra will go to Peggy’s house for daycare. You see, a few weeks ago, Peggy let us know that an opportunity had popped up for her that would take her into a full-time position and away from doing daycare any longer (she’s been at it for a really long time – like almost two decades).

This is a really sad moment for us for two reasons. The first is because Ezra is again faced with a major change to his life that he has absolutely no control over. It’s tough to think that the one thing that has been stable for him over the past 2.5 years is now going to be different…but we’re hopeful that he will be able to cope with the change and the new place as well as he has coped with everything else over the past few months. The second reason that this is really sad is because Peggy is an amazing person, and we are bummed that she won’t be part of our daily lives in the ways that she has been.

It’s an interesting dynamic to hand your child over to someone else, then walk away and feel completely safe and comfortable with it….and that’s something that we felt from day one with Peggy. For two years, we would take Ezra to her house twice a week and he would return rested (mostly) and happy as can be. Way more mornings than not, once we arrived at Peggy’s house Ezra would go running towards her with little regard for those of us dropping him off – that’s a really good thing. And on lots of occasions, I would inquire with Ezra about what he wanted to do for the day that we were together and he would reply with ‘go to Peggy’s house.’ She was flexible to our needs, worked with our schedules, and always greeted us with a hug smile. As a parent, there are few things in life that can make you happier than your child being happy…and Peggy has had a lot to do with that.

So that brings us to a few months ago when Liam was born. As we found ourselves living in the hospital and our parents now in charge of Ezra each day, we looked to Peggy to be able to provide some relief; and she did a whole lot more than that (I am actually tearing up as I write this thinking about how wonderful she has been to us). She contacted us almost immediately to let us know that she was ready and willing to do anything for us and anything for Ezra that we needed. We could bring him to her house every day if we wanted – and she wasn’t going to charge us a dime while we were still in the hospital. She wanted us to be able to focus on being there and not to have to worry about Ezra: which is an amazing gift. She sent a few care packages our way (with a lot of help from the other daycare parents), filled with things that would help us pass the time, filled with things that would taste a lot better than the cafeteria food, and filled with things for Ezra. Once we got home from the hospital, she had another care package that she and the parents put together filled with things for us to do as a family. Ezra went to her house once or twice a week for more than two months while we were with Liam, and those were days that we never had to worry one second about what he was up to.

So now Peggy gets to clean out her house of many years of toys, and she gets to paint the house with no worry that a bunch of kids are going to scuff it all up, and she gets to go to work with a bunch of people that are more her age than they are not (I guarantee nothing about maturity level, though). Ezra now has the opportunity to meet some new friends and hang out at a new house…and Ahna and I get the opportunity to say “Thank you Peggy! We love you for everything that you are and for everything that you have done for us. We will miss you!”