The difference between mom and dad

This morning, the tot's 2nd day of daycare, her dad was late getting home. Now this was a problem because:

• The plan was for him to take her in until she's adjusted to the place, at which point I'll take over, and
• We're trying to establish a routine to facilitate the adjustment mentioned in bullet point #1, and
• It drives me nuts when he's late and doesn't think about how it messes things up such as bullet points #1 and 2.

Also, this meant that after I failed to reach him by phone, I decided to take her in myself and stop being such a weenie. Because the whole reason he was driving her in the first place was because I didn't want to see her cry. Because it doesn't bother his been-there-done-that-dad self one bit, and it totally undoes me. I'm having enough trouble with the notion that my little chicken of a newborn was already old enough for school; I just didn't want to have the image of walking out on my crying toddler seared into my brain all morning.

Even though I knew she'd stop crying and be OK. Unless, of course, she didn't, and I got the call to come pick up my sodden puddle of a baby. So I'm working up a full head of righteous indignation in the car, when he calls. Can't you wait two minutes? I'll be home and take her. Nope, nope I can't. Because:

• Just like during the fourth quarter of the Giants' game, two minutes is never two minutes. If you had a decent internal time clock, you wouldn't have been late in the first place, and

• I'm martyring myself here, so I've got to go ahead and do it myself. After all, I wanted you to do it, but its not like I NEED you to do it. I can take care of it myself, thank you very much. For nothing! (If I let you take her, then I can't be pissed, and I'm now of a mind to be pissed, it seems.) And...
• I always over-worry things that, once I do them, aren't so very bad. So what the hell, I'll take my own damn kid to daycare. If I was a single mom I'd be doing it without a thought. (Well, I'm sure I'd have a thought, but I always use the single-mom I almost was to shame myself into doing things.)
  

So I take her. And she bawls. I walk out fast like I'm supposed to, but I feel like crap all morning.