Goodbye daycare

Eve's goodbye card

Eve's goodbye card from daycare

Eve’s daycare class made her this card. Isn’t it cool! (yes, they call her Eva, like the Wall-E movie) It’s huge too. She loves it. I’ve been feeling sad lately about daycare and missing it even though we haven’t even gone a whole week yet! Several times in the past few days the kids have said or done something that impressed me and when I asked where they learned it, the answer was, of course, at daycare. Lex likes to talk about the different books they have there and the games they play. Eve looks at her card many, MANY times a day and tells me about all the pictures and what was happening then and who the kids are. I think they really liked it there. I know we will find new routines and things to do, but it was nice to have that consistency of schedule and people, something you don’t really get at playgroups. Sigh. All good things must come to an end, I know, and I keep reminding myself that there will be more opportunities ahead.

On another note, we’ve had a busy week. My dad and brother were here doing some serious work in our garage! Alan built the framing for a mudroom in the garage and Dad and B were doing the sheetrock and other work on it. I’m so excited! I haven’t used the garage since late summer, but when it’s finally done it will be mostly a finished garage with a warm(ish) area to take off muddy boots and wet coats. No more dragging that muck into the kitchen! Yay!! I have pretty awesome men in my family!!

Breaking the news

The kids are finally settling in and happy at daycare.  Eve talks about her teacher and classmates all the time and Lex even started making friends.  Needless to say I’m wondering how they will be affected by me no longer working and them no longer going to daycare.  I told Eve this morning that I wouldn’t be working any more and she asked if I could come to daycare with her :)  When I explained the whole situation she said, “oh,ok.”  Lex’s response… “Great! Now I can come home with you in the afternoons!”  They are such awesome kids.  I still wonder if I’m going to feel the effects down the road, but we’ll see.  I know they have fun there and it’s a great social opportunity for them.  I’m also thinking of asking Eve’s teacher if she babysits.  We need a new babysitter and both of the kids love her (and I know she’s gone through background checks already! :) )  One more week and thus ends another chapter in this crazy life.

Daycare

I’ve been thinking about work lately and whether or not I should continue with my two days a week.  The job is fine and covers the costs of daycare, but not much more.  Working makes it more difficult to schedule appointments, lessons, and playdates, but the kids seem to finally like daycare and I hate to mess up the routine.  Today I felt very reassured in my decision.  I dropped Lex at school and then brought Eve to daycare.  We missed one day last week and I guess her teacher missed the other because when we came in the whole room was excited to see Eve.  I was worried about her fussing because she woke up late (really late!) and ate breakfast in the car, but when she saw the Christmas tree (much nicer than ours!) and a room full of smiling faces, she lit right up.  When I dropped Lex off after school he saw some kids sledding and decided (rightfully) that it was his group because he saw some of his friends there!  He has daycare friends!  Wheee!!  He made school friends quickly but seems to be slower at making daycare friends (for reasons I fully understand).  It made me really happy to see him happy to see them.  He gave me hugs and grabbed a sled and as I drove away I saw him sledding on his belly down a little hill and laughing!!  These are experiences they don’t get at home and I’m really happy that we’ve found a daycare that everyone likes.  It’s been a long, hard road, as you regular readers know, but I think it was worth it and now we can enjoy the benefits.  Whew!  Just in time for Christmas break ;)

Workbook pages

The daycare gave me a few of the workbook pages that Lex did there recently and this one caught my eye. What I first noticed is that he wrote his last name, something I hadn’t seen before. Then the note at the bottom made me laugh. I’m pretty sure Eve would have no trouble with this assignment.

Lex's daycare assignment

Lex's daycare assignment

Along those same lines, they are doing “color days” at preschool and we got a letter home asking that he wear specific colors on specific days. I presume this is to help them learn colors. Sounds like fun, right? I got down Lex’s calendar to write the colors on the days and he sat next to me and read the letter to me. This struck me as funny, I was writing down the days they will be learning “red” and he was reading the whole letter to me, days, dates, colors, etc.

I think we will be experiencing this for much of Lex’s academic career. :)

Crying Eve

I’ve been thinking lately about the effects of preschool on Eve. We didn’t do anything to prepare her for it because, well… what’s to do? We got Lex all prepared and figured Eve’s routine wouldn’t change much anyway. Now I’m wondering if that was the right thought.

She has been a fussy mess lately. I know she’s two and it comes with the age, but I really miss my sweet, good-natured baby girl. She cries, a lot, and fusses, and whines. I think a lot of it stems from her not sleeping well, but I’m not really sure why she isn’t sleeping well. She often wakes up crying at night. I think she might have bad dreams sometimes. She wakes up much earlier than she used to and is harder to put to bed.

What prompted this post however is her daycare fussing. When we started daycare she loved it. Lex cried a lot, but Eve was always super cheery and happily went off to play. Since Lex started school though Eve has really started to protest daycare. The past three or four days we’ve gone, I left her in a ball of tears. This morning she begged to come with me to drop Lex off (normally I drop her off first on daycare days) and she was happy until we got to daycare, then tears, tears, tears. I left her standing by the door crying that she wanted to come to work with me. The teacher was right next to her and I know it doesn’t last long, but it’s rough! She even suggested we drop me off first, before taking her to daycare :) She said she would carry me into my office. Silly girl!  I wonder if she misses having Lex with her at daycare?

Lex also cries everytime I bring him to daycare after school. Sigh. The hardest part is that I started the work/daycare thing to give her more social interaction (since it was so hard to get him out the door for playdates) and to get him ready for school. Now he’s happy at school and Eve and I have mornings for playdates… so the need to work is no longer there… which makes leaving them in tears two days a week really tough :(