The Unstoppable Zuri

In the Blink of an Eye

"Saph, I don't know what I'm gonna do with you," I said to my six-week old baby girl as she laid on my bed.

    She looked at me and smiled. She'd grown so much and hit so many milestones. Lately she'd been smiling a lot, and turning towards my dad and I. She knew and recognized her caretakers, and it was getting easier to bond with her, now that it seemed like she really knew me.

    "Are you ready for your first day of daycare?" I asked her as I put on her outfit.

    I wanted her to look like a million bucks for her first day of daycare. I put her in a white nightgown with a cute strawberry pattern on it, then gave her a matching red headband with a bow. I loaded all her stuff into the bag I'd be leaving with the daycare center.

There were multiple bottles of my breast milk, extra diapers, and multiple extra nightgowns. I told the staff beforehand that they were the easiest for me to take on and off her, because I didn't want it to seem strange that they were the only thing she wore. I dropped in some extra pacifiers as well.

My dad and I got into the car as the sun was going up. He changed his hours at work just so he could bring me back and forth to her daycare and my school. It felt so weird to be dressed in something other than a nursing sweater and sweatpants. I had my pump in my backpack, though. I really wasn't looking forward to using a bathroom stall to pump, but I'd have to deal with it. There were only two and a half months of school left anyway.

On the way to the daycare center, there was some roadwork and we got rerouted. We passed the Planned Parenthood on East Street, which was where I was going to have my aboriton. I turned and looked at Sapphire, happily sucking her pacifier and falling asleep in the backseat.

I really wanted to be a normal teenager, having freedom, going shopping with my friends, and pulling senior pranks. But you know what? It was okay. I had her.

We pulled up in front of the East Street Child Care. I swallowed hard when I put Sapphire into her carrier on my chest. There was a pop down the street that sounded like a firework. But the sun was coming up. No one was setting off fireworks here.

I walked up the ramp while my dad waited by the car. I opened the door to the center and went up to the desk, feeling a wave of guilt as another mother walked past me, wreaking of weed. I went over to the desk and waited behind a few other mothers checking their kids in.

While waiting, I looked around, noticing the smell of the old building and the peeling paint on the wall. ESCC was a subsidized daycare center for those who qualified. As a single, teenage mom, I was eligible to bring Sapphire here for free. In the fall, I'd be able to bring her to the daycare center on my community college campus, so she'd only be here for two months.

However, I didn't even want her here for two minutes. I tried to tell myself that it would be okay, and that this was what I had to do. I had no job and couldn't send her to a nice daycare in a safe neighborhood. ESCC was my only option if I wanted to go to school and finish my degree, because as a student in special ed classes, I wasn't eligible to do online classes through the district.

"Aww, hey there cutie!" said the lady at the front desk when she saw Sapphire. "Is this Sapphire?"

"Yes," I said proudly.

"Just a moment," she said, leaving the room.

She came back with Sandra, who was one of the teachers in the infant room. I walked back to the room with her and talked her through everything I brought with me. There were lines and lines of cribs and a lot of patched up holes in the wall. A bucket was placed under a leak in the ceiling, guarded by a playpen to keep the babies away from the dirty water. I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to convince myself that Sapphire was so little, she wouldn't understand where she was or how bad this place is.

"Any more questions for me?" Sandra asked.

"No, I think we're all set," I said.

"Can I take her?" she asked, holding her hands out.

I lifted Sapphire out of her carrier and handed her to Sandra, who lit up with a big smile.

"Bye Saph. Mommy loves you," I said.

"I'll be sending you some text updates throughout the day," Sandra said.

I walked myself out of the room, out the front door past the line of parents, and over to my dad. When I got into the car, I cried, but only a little. It felt like just yesterday when she was born, and now she was already in daycare. It really did go by in the blink of an eye.

My dad dropped me off in front of my high school. It felt like ages since I'd been there. I really was a completely different person. The last time I'd gone through the front entrance, I was still pregnant. Now I was actually a mom.

I went up to the front door and hit the buzzer.

"Hello?" said the voice on the speaker.

"Hi, I'm Zuri Le Fleur. Here for my first day back."

The door buzzed and I opened it, going into the unknown of high school while being a teen mom at the same time.