Loyalty

There is nothing more frustrating for a parent to see one's baby adoring your partner. Even if you adore your spouse you secretly hope your baby will always love you best! (And anyone who denies this is simply a liar!)

It August! This means the day care center has gone to part time and you also pay extra for this partial service. Besides that in the last ten days of the month the care takers get a vacation. They deserve it of course, but for working moms this is a hassle! Either the working mom needs to take a vacation (and all moms want their vacation days at the same time and have to fight to get them from their boss...) or the baby sitting war begins – as in how to get a sitter for just two weeks for full days. If you do not have a grandma handy, you are in a pickle! It's sour AND expensive!
(When your kids grow the costs do not sink because instead of the sitter you have to pay for their entertainment...aaaah!)

Thankfully I have my husband and his mother handy. Meaning I do not have to take days off in August! Yeppeee! Vacation days are precious in Israel, because employees only get ten a year (I.e. two weeks off work). Thanks to my husband unemployment (his new job starts only in September, the lord be praised!) and the fact that his mom is coming over from Germany to care for her grand child, I can keep my vacation days and then combined with the Jewish holiday season in October I will be away from the office for two weeks by just taking days off work! All right!

So far we had the good news! My august arrangements have been made and I can go on about my business cheerfully, until next year...but the bad news is that in the last week, since Jonathan has been at home with my husband, the boy clearly prefers my husband. I know this because he whines when my husband leaves the room, and he whines even if I remain! When Jonathan was smaller, he clearly preferred me, I was at home on maternity leave and my husband was working full time so naturally the boy attached himself to me, his mom! I felt great – this is the way things should be! A boy needs his mom! But my husband was frustrated by the preference. My husband will be the first to agree that a boy needs his mom, after all he has a great relationship with his mother to this day, even as a grown up!
This however did not lesser the fact that being second place for Jonathan after me was not pleasant to say the least.

Now I know what he meant and what he was grumbling about! Why as recently as two weeks ago, Jonathan still preferred me over any other person. True, he could ignore me completely when I came to pick him up from the daycare center because he was busy playing, but he was always ecstatic to see me one I got his attention and at home I was the clear favorite. Noe that he spends most of his waking hours with his father and sees me only a half an hour in the morning and two in the evening (nothing new here, this is also so when the day care center is open) he naturally attaches himself to his father, as he sees no one else during the day (at least there are three different care takers to choose from in the day care center...). This short term loyalty is fantastic – his father just started being at home with him this week and already on the first day Jonathan showed a change of preference. This loyalty is wonderful but frustrating for me. And now tomorrow my husbands mother is coming and she and my husband will be spending hours with the boy while I work! I almost wonder if between them he will remember me!

Well, I am exaggerating, of course – the boy is still very happy to see me and play with me when I get home and I am in fact happy that he spends more time with his father (who when he was working saw even less of his son). I am hoping this new attachment will also last and motivate my husband to take a larger role in Jonathan's life!

All these positive thoughts put aside, I must always remember that this is just a short summer interlude. September will come soon, the day care center will reopen it's doors, my husband will start working and all will be back to normal – If Jonathan's loyalty is indeed short spanned (babies really do have short span of attention according to researches I read) then there is still hope that mommy will once more become number one! Hurray! After all, a boy needs his mom!