I never expected my child to find a home away from home at his daycare.

Since he was six months old, Luke has been under the care of a team who has taught him, trained him and loved him as much or more than we have. He has classmates who have been in his room since he started and I am as invested in their growth, milestones and accomplishments as I am my own child’s. I consider them nieces and nephews of sorts that I want to see flourish and succeed.

The sad news is that with the countless opportunities and benefits our new home have afforded us, it means moving Luke away from his daycare. Even though we moved nearly two months ago, we felt that keeping his daycare consistent during the transition would be crucial. Officially, our contract expires at the end of August. But, our little man is now about to verbalize his discontent and his sweet voice asking to get out of the car, asking to walk instead of drive and singing to himself while we battle roughly two hours of traffic has taken its toll.

Most of the time, I make decisions in about 3.5 minutes. My success-to-error ratio coupled with the time I’ve saved in the course of my life has vastly solidified in my mind that this method is what works for me. But, in a marriage, especially when it comes to kids, my opinion is decidedly not the only one that matters. Eric’s thorough, contemplative approach to decision making has saved me time and again. While I used to fight it, I now really value it. This time though, I’m struggling and analyzing in a way that isn’t my nature. We’ve had to make a decision and it’s a great option — an option that, were it presented to us two years ago, would have made us delighted. But, it’s hard to leave something you love.

We’ve been researching daycares for a few weeks. There are exponentially more options in our new neighborhood. Not only in terms of more locations, but all of the locations have availability. When we first found our current daycare, we prayed and waited for a spot and luckily it didn’t take them long to fit us in.

I’m trying, hard, to focus on the benefits of the new daycare instead of seeing the things that are not necessarily better or worse but just different. I know my child will be happy, safe and learning while he’s there. I know he’ll love walking down the street in the morning — and dad and I will too–instead of hoping in the car. He’ll love the theme weeks. If we want, they will also have space for the baby when it comes time for me to go back to work. It will be good for Luke to meet new kids in the neighborhood that will eventually be in his school and, as an added plus, we’ll be saving bundle on the tuition thanks to the area having a cheaper cost of living.

My mom has assured me that this is a part of parenting. As your child is forced to move on, so are you. Maybe it’s the extra hormones from the pregnancy or all the transition in our lives, but I get teary every time I think about him saying good bye. Or about how he won’t remember all the fun he had there with people who took such great care of him. I guess this really is part of growing up.