the secret blog

Ah, daycare.

Katie adores — and I mean ADORES — her daycare providers. Nina and Dede (as they are called by the children) are two incredibly wonderful women who have shown Katie love and attention since Brandon and I had to return to work, and while I’ve sometimes had to steer them certain directions w/r/t certain details, overall I feel comfortable knowing that Katie is in their care. Daycare is at Nina’s house, and Dede comes to help out and also brings her own daughter (who is… 2? 3?). Katie never, ever cries when we take her there — the minute she sees either of the women or any of the children she practically flings herself out of our arms to get to them.

They have worked hard with Katie to get her from bottles to sippy cups, so now she takes her one serving of breastmilk via sippy instead of bottle. (For someone with such a strong sucking attachment, this was a feat in and of itself!) They’ve helped her loving personality flourish, and I would readily trust any of my children to their care (I say, as if I have a brood that’s following me around like a flock of ducklings).

Somehow I recently got it into my head that at 2, we should move Katie into a more structured environment. I have no idea why I got this bug in my bonnet, really, and I’m not sure if Brandon came to a similar conclusion on his own or if he was sucked into my vortex of weird Mommy Logic, but it was partially driven by the fact that I hate the idea of my child watching TV at all (like, unreasonably so) and I know they watch some TV at daycare. Why do I care about this so much? It’s not like my kid is sitting in front of a TV all day! But somehow, this factor recently drove me to distraction and I think it, combined with the fact that some of our friends have put their kids in a more structured environment already, made me feel like we would possibly be doing Katie a disservice by not doing the same for her.

So, we looked at two different toddler/preschool programs this week, and the feeling I got in my gut should have notified me that this might not be The Right Decision right now. I wasn’t sure if Brandon agreed, but it really bothered me to think about Katie going from such a loving, caring environment to one that, while still loving and caring, is so much more like “school.” We are in school from around age 4 to 21, so why exactly do I feel the need to get her started on that train so much earlier? More so, what do I expect her to gain from this environment that she can’t get from her current situation?

Currently, she has the opportunity to both grow with friends her own age (Jonathan, Brianna) and learn from the older children that she sees every day. Nina is trained in early childhood education and both she and Dede are engaging and attentive. They don’t do the structured classroom “thing”, true, but I’m not sure from 2-3 that that is something really necessary. She gets to spend her days in a home instead of a sterile school building; Nina and Dede are fairly flexible about dealing with sickness and absence.

Brandon approached me after he picked up Katie last night and said that he wanted me to consider her staying at Nina’s until she’s 3. He said he wasn’t feeling comfortable with the idea of moving her to one of the “schools” we’ve seen so far, because he’s not sure what added advantage she’ll get from it, and he also likes the idea of her staying at Nina’s with any possible siblings on the horizon for whatever period of time that would be. Our time together after work/daycare is so short and she needs as much bonding time with any sibling that she can get. (We’ve already agreed that Nina and Dede would, without a doubt, take care of any infants in our future.)

It doesn’t hurt that Nina is CONSIDERABLY cheaper than the schools around here :)

So, while we have three more tours on the horizon, our end decision might be to wait-list at the appropriate school until she’s 3. Or not, who knows. We can’t seem to stick to a decision here for more than 3-5 days at a time. :P

I find the process of investigating preschools for Katie to be oddly heart-rending. It’s hard for me to conceive of her going from a home environment to an institutionalized one, even if that’s what she’s going to need soon in terms of stimulation.

Regarding kindergarten: if school lets out at 1:30, how the heck do parents work full-time? And what do you do during the summer?!

K woke up this morning (her second night sleeping almost all night long… woah), nursed, then we went into the kitchen and she asked for her snack cup with (whole grain) Goldfish in it, so I gave it to her.

I’m sure she’ll have breakfast at DC, but… am I a bad mommy for letting her eat Goldfish at 7:30 am?

[edit: I ask this jokingly. :D]

Also, the child who dislikes most non-yogurt foods is enamored of Annie’s vegan soups. Last night she destroyed a bowl of lentil soup (which I think speaks back to her early adoration of mashed peas).

First, let me start by saying that soy pudding (at least ZenSoy) is a big, fat FAIL.

Katie is a super active little kiddo. She’s constantly gogogogogogo! (she was even like that in utero, throwing raves every night and the like) so when we’re home together, usually one of us is completely wrapped up in her shenanigans while the other does whatever needs to be done (getting dinner ready, etc). Sometimes in the morning, though, she’ll do what we did today — lay next to me in bed, playing with my hands and hair, sucking a pacifier and quietly being a little cuddlebug. Every now and then she would change positions and give me a toddler kiss and make a cute little noise.

Being a mom rules.

Katie is officially bottle-free! Well, she’s been bottle-free for two weeks or so, but now she’s so into sippy cups (from which she takes 6oz of milk a day at daycare) that they let us know we could just send the milk in a sealed container.

Woot! She’s still a paci-fiend, though. :D

16m 2w 6d :D

I think Katie might escape unscathed! She had a mark that looked suspicious on her leg last night and was INCREDIBLY fussy, but the other sides of her molars are coming through, so there’s no way to differentiate her fussiness. She slept relatively well and ate a good dinner, too, so … now that I’m posting this, she’ll certainly come down with some evil crud.

I’m super relieved, because it sounds like a really wretched sickness.

We’re going to take a tour of a potential preschool next week: I am sort of freaked out about that.

K had no signs of it up to this morning, but now G and R both have fallen… I am worried for my peanut’s outlook.

*frets*

Katie went to enjoy birthday shenanigans with Ava, Shane, and Griffin on Saturday night (others were also in attendance), after a fun day at the park and playing at Toys ‘R’ Us (she LOVED the train set they had out there). She slept an amazing 10 hours straight afterward, woke up, took a 2 hour nap (unheard of in our house), and when she woke up we headed over to another birthday party in the city, where we met many of my coworker’s children and had delicious food.

We got home and Ava called us to let us know that G was running a fever. Turns out today that he has Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease :( Katie is very likely to catch it because they were sharing a sippie, and I may very well catch it because I was hugging and kissing G. Even though the incubation period is typically 3-7 days, I immediately went to my friend (who is a coworker) to tell him the bad news, so he could tell all the parents at his party. While it’s sort of embarrassing to have a Typhoid Mary in my house, it’s more important for me to make sure that the other parents have early warning (even if there’s nothing to be worried about).

I’m interested in hearing anyone’s experiences with it if they’ve ever had it (or if their kids have).