my favorite moment of daily day care

When I would arrive, after work, to pick up my toddler from daycare, no matter how I tried to have a few moments observing her without her knowing I was there, I almost never succeeded. All the children knew which adults belonged to which child. When a parent appeared, even if that parent's child was completely immersed in some interaction with other children, first one and then many children would call out "Rosie, your mom is here!"

I managed to steal a very few glimpses of her playing unaware I was present. Such glimpses were so precious to me. The memories remain prescious 30+ years later.

She was the most adorable child in her day care, says the objective mother!

All kidding aside, I loved seeing little glimpses of who she was independent of me. As soon as she knew I was present, she became my daughter and, not entirely, her own self. That's why young adults individuate from parents."

But, geez, Rosie, fourteen and a half years of individuating might be enough. I note that you have become FB friends with your father, who not only molested you when you were five but who refused to participate in your life for most of your childhood. You don't know this and I imagine your father would lie and deny this but (1) a Hennepin County Judge, not me, appointed a guardian ad litem for you and issued an order that strictly limited his visitation until he participated in some therapy with you, which he never did and (2) in spite of court orders and you having your own attorney (what was her name?!), I often wrote to your father, and also his relatives, offering to arrange visits with you, bypassing court orders. I used to write to your aunt the medical doctor and offer to pay to fly you to visit her, your grandmother and your father. None of them ever acknowledged those offers. I did not discuss them with you because (1) you were a child and (2) I didn't want you to experience let down when he failed.

There were several times he agreed to come visit you and then never showed up. You didnt know about that because I didn't tell you, just in case he bailed. I reasoned you could be happy if he showed up and that you didn't need to know if he let you down.

Do you remember that he came up to see you play Titania? Did you ever consider how much effort it cost me to get him to come?

Do you know that he was in Minneapolis when you were hospitalized in your sophomore year of high school, right at Christmas time?  I know he was in town because I had the brand new caller ID feature and I got a call from a hotel by the Mall of America. He was in town Christmas shopping with Deb but he didn't bother to visit his very sick child in the hospital. And he knew you were sick. Of course I told your father any time you were sick.

Then you got to Cornell and he seemed to fill you with lies, a twisted, mistaken version of our unhappy history. Why believe and trust him but not me?

I was there for you, day in and day out, year in and year out, making so many sacrifices you don't know about because you were the child and I was the parent.

He gets to have a relationship with you? but not me?  Help me understand.