Damn Oz

Yesterday, the idiots at Oz decided to start my baby on solids. She has never eaten solids before, primarily because I was allergic to everything on God's green earth as a child. Her pediatrician recommended we wait until she is six months old, which is not for another week.

Okay, so she was going to start them soon anyway.

Okay, so very few babies are allergic to rice cereal.

I still want someone's ass in a sling. Here's why:

Having to go back to work and putting the little angel at Oz made me feel a) like a bad mother and b) very helpless, like I had lost control. I am a control freak - ask anyone. Turning her care over to any other unrelated human being (or even some who are related) makes my skin crawl. Finding out they decided to make parenting decisions while I unknowningly toiled at my stupid cube makes me furious.

I chose Oz over in-home daycare because I assumed the director was IN CHARGE. That there were POLICIES AND PROCEDURES. When my beloved dropped the little angel off this morning - OVER MY DEAD BODY, OOPS I HAVE TO EARN - the director was beside herself with concern. She apparently called the offender at home and asked why she gave the little angel cereal. "Because she was fussy" was the answer. What's next? Little Jack's Ridalin?

Okay, I can hear all the counterarguments already. I can't control everything that happens in her life. This is just the first step in a long series of disappointments as a mother. I can always give her her second first taste of cereal this weekend. What's done is done.

It doesn't make me not want to cry if I think too hard about what happened yesterday. It doesn't make me feel like a better mama. I never realized I could love another person this much, and I never realized I could feel so utterly and totally deflated when she has a big moment without me. This mama thing sure is hard.