Daycare for Mama

Today is my son's first day at daycare. Up until now, we've had a babysitter who has come to our house while I am working. I am following a friend's wise advice not to expect myself to be all too productive for the first couple of weeks that he's there, because it is apparently usually a bigger adjustment (emotionally) for mama than it is for the peanut. Beyond that, though, one of my concerns is that I won't be as focused or efficient as I was with the sitter and the tot in the house with me.

This thought surprised me. In fact, it surprised our dear former sitter, who said, "what do you mean you won't be able to get as much done even though I won't be chattering away at you and distracting you every time you come upstairs?" Yes, I'd get slightly too caught up in conversations with her when I came up from the basement office to grab a snack or say hi to the little one. And more significantly, if he was crying and I wasn't on a client call I would tend to come up and check on him. I did a middling job of learning to limit the time I took away from my work for a break.

Which I guess we all have to do regardless of what the distraction might be- baby or sitter, co-workers, chores, tetris… or ourselves. That last one is what I am wondering about. Before babe was born, I worked in a quiet house most of the time. There were some things I know I was much more efficient at when I was not alone in the house. I could clean up my office better when my husband was doing the same (or when my assistant was keeping me on task when I had one) for example. I think I've now gone for one of the longest stretches in my career that I have NOT been alone at the house working. But working with a baby and sitter upstairs is different from having a body-double or assistant or just someone working at the same sort of task or in the same room.

Yet having those people in my house helped anchor my attention. That's the ADHD trick. They kept me outside my own internal whirling thoughts, and so, while distracting me, they also rescued me from distraction. INTERNAL, INATTENTIVE-TYPE distraction. So I'm giving myself a couple of weeks, and then I might have to add in some new accommodations for this little mind. We shall see.