Day Care, Day One

Last week I went to drop off Aki Bear's schedule and the contract that we drafted up to K. (K is our day care person.) It was such a relief to see her with other children (three others were there, one was sleeping.) The two kids that I saw were 1 year old and 8 months old - the Bear was bigger than both of them. I swear. I knew he was big but seeing other children made me realize what "greater than the 95th percentile" really means. The one year old girl could walk and Aki Burrito was ENTHRALLED. I think he was like, "Whoa, chickadee, tell me your secret! How do you get those feet moving?" He said that with his eyes, I'm pretty sure of it (they were wide and sparkling), and she looked back at him with her four-tooth grin and did a little skiphop as if showing off and said, "There's a secret potion, it's called, teething gel, it makes you run like the wind." Just kidding. If only he could talk at 5 months...what would he say!? Ah, the hilarity. Anyhoo. So, that impromptu visit was really great for me, for Stanbear too as he sat in this little playset-doohickey and went wild with all of the activities surrounding him. We were there for less than 20 minutes but it was a healing twenty. I felt at ease now in having him start day care the next week.

Fast forward to yesterday, his first day of care! I felt good driving there I had all of his "supplies" organized and in a bag. Three bottles of breast milk, a wee container of pears (his new favorite), diapers, changes of clothes, swaddle blanket and a few of his favorite things to chew on and some sloppily written directions (as if a newborn comes with directions, ha!) So, I get there, give K the run down of when I think he'll eat and sleep next. She is holding him and they sit down on the couch. He's standing on her lap and he looks at me. I say, "Hi, Stanley! Mama's got to go now." He flashes the biggest, cutest smile and it breaks my heart and I fight back tears. I say, "Bye Stanman!" and his smile lingers as his sweet eyes look at me. I make myself turn around and walk out the door. Like Mike's sis Jen said, "Rip it off like a bandaid." I cry like a baby. I didn't think that this would happen as I felt really at ease with my previous visit with K. I'm surprised at my reaction. As I'm driving I ask myself why I'm so upset. It has nothing to do with leaving him with K but instead it has to do with him not knowing what I'm doing. I told Mike when I got home that I felt like I was pulling the carpet out from under our boy. Like I was ditching him. I didn't want him to think I was playing a trick on him. It was a horrible feeling. But Mike said something like, "He doesn't know about tricks. He doesn't know any of those kinds of games. He will be so happy to see you when you pick him up." That is so true. It's my tainted, grown-up projections of his feelings. It made me realize how innocent this little person is. He's so pure of heart and if he does get upset that I'm not there he will experience it, move on, play with the new toys and hang out with the other babies, see me at the end of the day and be happy(hopefully!) and learn that is what happens. It's day care afterall, not allthetimeforever care. Although day care + mommy/daddy care = allthetimeforever care. It takes a village.

So, K called me twice while she had him. Once while I was in a deep slumber to say that he wasn't taking the bottle at all. I told her that just yesterday he started doing that with Mike and that I think it had to do with introducing solids. I think he could eat pears all day long, forget about that nasty bottle! She eventually got him to drink an entire bottle! Hallelujah! The next feeding she fed him the pear and she said I could probably put more in there as he was a zealous pear eater. As for naps he took two and went down unswaddled and cried for a maximum 3 minutes. WHAT?! and his second nap was 1.5 hours long. WHAT?! So, yay yay yay yay for K. It was a short first day, just 8:30am - 2:15pm but it went really well and Mike was right, he was happy to see me when I got there. K said that he was a good baby, really easy going. He will be doing a full day on Thursday.

As for my scheduled sleep while he was at day care I slept for an hour and a half and then Ks call woke me and I was AWAKE. I then took an hour and 45 minute nap later in the day. No long, glorious sleep like I imagined. Maybe on Thursday? We'll see.