First Day at Daycare

My blogging skills since becoming a mother have been seriously embarrassing. I constantly think of great things to blog about but obviously never actually do it. Well today I was sort of "struck" with some crazy urge to document this milestone in Alice's life and I'm actually doing it! I'll be honest, it helps that Aaron is working late so I have no distractions, and nobody to fight for the computer (yes, we share a computer. I know).

We have been so blessed to have our families care for Alice for the first 11 months of her life. I realize this isn't a possibility for so many people so I am grateful every day for our parents' willingness to provide care for Alice on a full-time basis. She has been watched by a combination of Aaron's parents, my mom, my stepmom, and my sisters. Growing up I didn't have an especially "close" relationship with any of my grandparents (mainly due to the fact that my mom's parents lived in Fargo), so I am so excited to see Alice developing close bonds with her grandparents.

Getting some sun in the backyard at Tammy's house

Our original plan was to put Alice into some kind of daycare this fall when she's between 16-18 months old. I felt super confident that we would have our pick of the litter since we had the advantage of having so much time to look. In a very roundabout way we found our daycare provider - Tammy - partly because of word-of-mouth (her brother is friends with my friend's husband). I had heard fabulous things about her daycare environment but when I called her a couple months ago she didn't have any openings. She called me back on April 2nd - the day after we had verbally committed to a different daycare where Alice would have started in November - and told me she would have an immediate opening as a family was leaving her care in 2 weeks. I told her no thank you since we didn't want to start Alice so soon, and because we had found a different place that we liked well enough.

That next evening (April 4) I had dinner with my girlfriends and casually mentioned Tammy's call. Two of them strongly urged me to at least go meet her since it was rare that she has an opening. We visited her on April 10 and immediately had a good feeling - mostly because Alice actually REACHED OUT for Tammy to hold her after we had been there only 3 minutes or so. Alice isn't super freaked out by strangers usually but she has NEVER been that receptive to someone she just met. We sheepishly backed out on the other lady and that was that.

Fast forward to this morning, April 23, and Alice was ready for her first day of daycare. I was peppered with questions in  the last week or so about how nervous I must be for Alice to start daycare and got all the usual comments like "It will be harder for you than for her". I'll admit I did have some anxiety surrounding the whole situation but sort of in a different way. Hello Mom Guilt - I was really worried that I may not have been doing everything the "right" way for these first 11 months and that Tammy might somehow judge my parenting skills as lacking. Alice isn't the most consistent napper, and she still needs a bottle or to be nursed in order to fall asleep. She isn't a fan of a lot of different foods yet. Etc, etc, etc.

In reality I'm sure there are plenty of other kids out there who have way more messed up issues than that. At least, I will tell myself that. Alice blew me away with how well she did today. Aaron dropped her off at about 8:20 and I made him call me as soon as he left the house so I could psychoanalyze everything about Alice's reaction to being left with Tammy. He said that she was just sort of lukewarm to the whole thing. I took that as a positive. The cutest part of her arrival was the fact that Josie - age 3 - had made a card to welcome Alice to daycare and greeted her at the door with it. Adorable!

Little Miss Josie seems to be a big fan of Alice :)

Tammy called me at 11:30 to report that Alice was having a fantastic morning. She had gone for a wagon ride with the other kids (there are only 3 others -- Josie, James age 2, and Brogan age 18 mos) and clapped the whole way, and she enjoyed circle time. We had sort of discussed the possibility of Alice only doing a half day today if things didn't go well but Tammy told me she saw no reason to send Alice home early. I felt a small weight fly off my shoulders after that conversation and immediately turned into the proudest mother in the office. I almost scampered to my boss's office to let him know the good news and started blurting it out not realizing there were two other people in his office with him. So they got to share in my excitement - lucky them I'm sure.

Figuring out this car thing

Tammy actually e-mailed me a few pictures this afternoon which was an awesome surprise. I can't get enough of pictures of Alice or stories about what she's doing when I'm not with her. I'm just so curious all the time. I left work early to pick her up today. Pick up time is 5:00 so normally either my mom or Aaron's mom will do the pick-up and bring her to our house until one of us gets home (thanks again awesome family!) I wanted to get her today though and also touch base with Tammy in person. They were in the backyard when I arrived and Tammy was holding Alice and it actually took Alice a minute or so to even notice I was there. I kind of expected maybe a minor meltdown or outpouring of emotion when she saw me but, nope. She just reached for me and wanted to be held but there was no production whatsoever.

An experienced driver already!

She didn't drink much milk (only 10 oz, she normally has about 15 oz) but Tammy said she was really into her lunch of grilled cheese, turkey, bananas and carrots. That didn't surprise me as sometimes she doesn't love taking a bottle from a stranger but she is definitely into finger foods. She had a tiny morning nap and then napped from 1:00 to 3:15 pm. Tammy has all the kids on one nap a day between 1 and 4, so eventually Alice will be needing to do that too, so hopefully she won't have too much trouble with that transition.

Back tomorrow for Day #2! I remarked to my mom tonight that Alice already seems so much older in just one day. I can't wait to see all the things she learns and brings home to show us! It's a good feeling to know that she is in the right place and being exposed to so many new, fun and exciting things.