Our Very Own Ukulele Folk Singer

Dear Kelly,
You are amazing.  You came to us first as just a sitter.  Someone to come play with Elliot for a couple of hours in the afternoon a few times a week.  No diaper changing.  No meal preparing.  Just come and play.  Maybe have a snack.  Read some books and play with some dolls, we said.  There were just a few hours each week that we couldn't be home with Elliot and we just wanted someone who could come and engage him for those hours.  And engage him you did... singing him songs, playing him music, teaching him how to dance, making up games with his animals, crashing his trucks, singing, dancing, make believe, singing, dancing, singing dancing!!!!  It was clear that you were so incredibly engaged, so incredibly talented at meeting his toddler level of development and interests, so incredibly fun and playful.

Then you became so much more.

This last week I started my first full time job since Elliot was born.  After he arrived I adjusted my schedule to work three ten-hour days and was able to be home most of the week--and I was just continuing in a job that I had already done for the previous four years and could do in my sleep--which I essentially did until I left that job a year later.  Then I had a wonderful summer solely with Elliot, followed by a handful of months working just a few hours in the late afternoon and some on the weekend.  All in all, I have spent nearly two years either working part time or not working at all.  I haven't had to wear five "work" outfits in a row since the beginning of May, 2009!  Which brings me to last week.  Working five full days (that's five work outfits in a row!) was... well, it was a lot of things.

It was refreshing to reengage in my profession and put my focus somewhere other than my house and Elliot.  It was difficult to get in a rhythm of getting my own needs met only during break times, instead of whenever I felt like it.  It was emotionally challenging (in a really big way) to be removed from my cell phone and have a dreaded sense of disconnect from Elliot's day.  And, most of all, it was totally fine.  Fine because I knew Elliot was home with Kelly--his ukulele playing, folk singing, garbage truck song writing, art making, quinoa muffin baking, park going, game inventing Kelly, who, without batting an eyelash, jumped on the chance to transition from being with Elliot just a few hours in the afternoons to being with him for 9 hours at a time.

Kelly, you are such a gem.  We feel so lucky that you choose to spend your days with Elliot.  We have seen his imagination, his love of music, and his mad dancing skills bloom since you've been a part of his life.  We know this symbiotic relationship (her words--love) won't last forever (Elliot's on the waiting list to get into the childcare center on the hospital campus where I got a job), but for now, we are so very,  very happy.

xo, Elliot and his Mamas

(pics below of Kelly playing a show at the tea house and Elliot dancing his little heart out to her tunes.  Find more Kelly here here and here.)