Guilty. Liable. Wrong. Felonious. Culpable.

These words are all synonyms.

And describe how I feel quite perfectly at the moment.

It's been two weeks since we did a Tuesday or Thursday transfer from preschool to daycare.

I did one today.

Brody was at first so happy to see me. Grins. Dimples dazzling. Running into my arms.

"Hi mommy!" squishing hugs.

"Mommy, I wanna go home."

I know, Brody. I wanna go home too. But you get to go to [name of daycare] today! And see all your friends!

Crumpled face. Tears. Sobbing.

"Mommy, I wanna go home!"

"I don't wanna go to school. Peez mommy, peez I want go home!"

My heart feels like his face.

Crumpled.

I tried bribery.

I'll bring you a treat, Brody.

"Mommy, I wanna go home. Peez I can go home? Peez?!?!"

I hugged him a lot between the preschool, the car, the daycare.

"Daddy misses me, mommy. Peez no school today?"

Daddy does miss you. I miss you too, baby, but we have to take you to school because mommy and daddy have to go to work. I'm sorry sweetie. I'm so sorry. All your friends miss you too, sweetie. Like Monty, Dylan, Zoe, Ryan, Noah. They all are waiting for you at [daycare].

Hugging me fiercely, muffled into my hair, I hear, "I wanna be wis you, mommy."

I can't do this anymore. He loves his daycare. He truly does, and the teachers adore him. We walked in and they got his naptime mat and blankie ready. He leaves my arms calmly and passes right out on his mat, with his blankie on him.

But I seriously can't do this.

He only has problems when I do the transfer from preschool to daycare. It is too much to ask of him to be okay with seeing me, in the middle of the day, and have me leave him twice.

We looked at the other possible daycare this morning, before this episode.

It's not as nice as the one we have. It's in a church, which is not our church, but they seemed nice. A few of the kids he has known from other daycares when he was little little. The kids were happy and orderly. Teachers normal. Outside play area was awesome. Licensed by the state; I've seen the inspection reports, it's all okay.

And they would pick him up from preschool and take him, with his classmates, to that daycare. For $120 less a month. And it's 10 minutes closer to our house.

But I can tell it's not as good a daycare as the one we have. The facility, for one, is just a big room that is "multi-use." No actual rooms divided by age. Smaller than the center we're at, seemingly less organized. Less professional.

And they said, "So you said he has some disabilities?" Um.... no. I said he has a limb difference. That made me not like them, but it IS a fairly innocent, and relevant, question. But it got my hackles up.

But I can't repeat today. I can't do that to him. It's demanding too much of my little boy. And I will just come to work one day and quit if we don't figure this out soon.

And if we do have a pay cut, I may reduce my hours even more anyway and go to some kind of part-time schedule. One of my co-workers does that; she works 4 days a week; a 20% pay cut.

But it would be so nice to have more time with him.

My poor baby. I'm a terrible mother.