Daycare Diaries - Update

Here I am wiping my brow and being glad that we made it through the past few weeks!

We just completed our third week of daycare.  When we first started, Mrs. Val told me it may take a couple of weeks for things to start to calm down a bit.  She was exactly right.  Last Friday (the end of the second week) we started talking about friends on the way to school.  When we got in the car we talked about how Mommy is going to go to school, Daddy is going to go to school, Chell is going to go to school, and Caromine (her new pronunciation) is going to go to school.  Then we started talking about her friends at school and how much fun she is going to have.  Some of the kids are the same as last year and some of the kids I have never met before.  So I sneaked a peek at the names on the cubbies so that I could add to her list of friends.  So we talked about Ayden, Tanvi, Dreama, Patrick, Jackson, Neil, Mrs. Nita, and Mrs. Val.  I'd say the names and she would repeat them back.  She got especially excited about Tanvi (I think they are close buds) and Mrs. Val.  Last year she LOVED Mrs. Nita, but I think she is more about Mrs. Val this year.  By the time we got to school we had talked about all of her friends and how much fun she was going to have.  So I went to get her out of her seat (every time before this this is where she would really start crying) and I told her we were going to see her friends.  She got right out, I grabbed her hand to walk her in, she dropped my hand once we got to the door inside and asked me to open the door.  Then she walked right in, ran to Mrs. Val, told me bye, and I turned and left.  It was AWESOME!!!!!!!

This is how every morning has been since then and it has been awesome.  She is hanging her coat up in her cubbie, asking for Mrs. Val, and walking herself right in.  I give her a kiss and peace out for my day.  It really is an easier way to start my day and lets me head to work thinking about work and not about my heart breaking for her.  Bonus this week was that we got a 2 hour nap out of her on Wednesday and an hour and a half nap on Thursday.  Those days she came home my sweet girl.  She was not fussy or whiny.  She listened, used her manners, and was just much more fun to be around.  We played outside, we laughed, and we spent those hours just enjoying each other.  The days she doesn't naps are just afternoons that we have to get through and I will admit they are not a lot of fun.

Some people told me to enjoy the times that she wanted me because soon she would not.  I'll tell you what, I got no pleasure out of her crying for me and having to be torn out of my arms.  There is nothing about that that made me feel extra loved by her. It made me so sad knowing that I had to leave her feeling like that for 8 hours.  Now that she walks in by herself and gives me a kiss and tells me bye, it makes me so happy and proud that she is confident and feels safe and secure in knowing that I always will come back to get her and until that happens, she has lots of friends and two great teachers to spend her day with!