Transitions

I apologize that I haven't posted as much lately.  I have a litany of excuses - there are three weeks left in the semester so I am grading the last round of exams and preparing for finals.  The time change TOTALLY fucked with us, so we've been going to bed at 7:00 and waking up at 5:00 most days.  If she sleeps until 6:00 that's a major accomplishment - even on Saturdays.  (See tweet in adjacent column).  And of course, I'm taking a class that I feel like I'm weeks behind  in.

But I think the biggest reason is that there are alot of transitions going on.  I don't deal well with change, so I've retreated a bit into my shell as a coping mechanism.

The Wee One is now in the Two's room at daycare.  She is in a group of about 5 children whose age puts them in between the very large enrollment of infants (the "wind storm" baby boom is the age group right behind ours) and the somewhat large enrollment of older toddlers.  So, while she is only 18 months, there are a large number of children turning one and needing to move up to the One's room, and almost all of the children have transitioned to the older Two's room, leaving a glut of kids in one group, and an empty room.  So there is a group of the older kids in the One's room that are going into the younger Two's room.  My Wee One is one of those.

Being an effective daycare director means not only effectively managing all the children in your care, but also ... their parents.  The daycare has done that well.

One morning I came back from class to a message on my phone.  There was a teacher out, and they were trying to put children with caregivers in an appropriate way, and wondered if I would give permission for my girl to go into the Two's room with another group of 18-20 month olds.  We talked (okay, the assistant director talking and I listened) about it.  I said yes.  She did great.  Rock star and all of that.

It's a bigger room.  It has bigger and better toys, including a slide.  She loves it.  It's awesome.

The next week she did some "visiting" into this room.  One little boy from her room had already transitioned ahead of her, so there were children she knew.  She did great on all her "visits".

There have been some "biting" episodes including my girl getting bit twice.  Our daycare's policy is to not disclose the identity of a biter under any circumstances.  I've done some reconnaissance (completely dishonestly, but I don't really care) and I found out the identity of two of the children doing the biting.  When I pinned the daycare director down about the biting, she told me that the children responsible for most of the biting incidents will not be transitioning for a while, so it's actually an opportunity to get her away from "the biters".  That's what actually made the deal for me. 

So we agreed to transition her to the Two's room, but to continue the "transition" I could drop her off in the Creepers room as usual. 

Drop-off routine is normally: take off her jacket and hang it on the hook.  Hang up her bag, but take out the cloth diapers and the wetbag.  Hang the wetbag on a designated doorknob.  Put the cloth diapers in her diaper cubby.  Kiss her goodbye.

Only ... some other kid's name and diapers are now in her diaper cubby.  So I started just leaving her diapers and wetbag in her tote bag for them to move into the other room.

Then at the end of last week, when we were walking into the Creeper room, she saw her new friends in the Two's room, and walked right in there and started playing.

I thought it was bad when they transitioned the whole group from Creepers to Toddlers - but that just included moving the entire group one room over with the same caregivers.  This is not only into a new room (across the hall!) but with new caregivers.  And from a room designed for infants (refrigerator) to a room designed for older Toddlers.

Her new main caregiver isn't in until 8:15 most days, and I drop her off between 7:45-8:00.  So while I have had great interactions with the caregiver at the end of the day, I am still really discombobulated on the "drop off" stuff, and I haven't been able to ask her.  My plan was to make sure I was totally prepped for Monday, and do drop-off late enough to ask a few questions - only I have a student makeup scheduled (for an A+ student who was truly sick so I was willing to accommodate him) Monday at 8:00 am.

I tend to have social anxiety in new situations.  But I sucked it up and started asking questions like "where should her diapers go" and "where should her wetbag go" and "here are some diaper liners if she needs diaper cream - if Miss Danielle has any questions she can feel free to call me".  I also wrote up a new "Cloth Diaper Information Sheet" that can be kept in her new diaper cubby for the new caregivers in that group.

I still don't feel totally oriented to the situation, but the center's Holiday Lunch is this week, so we will be able to interact more with the new caregivers.  I am bringing mom and dad so they can meet the new folks and see her new room.

I sat in the Assistant Director's office with the AD and one of Wee One's "former" caregivers.  I cried.   They both reassured me that she's doing great.  She's showing no signs of stress about it at all.  She's learning how to walk out the the playground by holding on the loop on the rope they use.  She loves being on the "big" playground.  She hasn't been upset at drop-off or pick-up at all.  She sleeps for 2-hour naps.

So Mommie is the only one having an issue here, apparently.  I'm hoping at some point that I start to feel better about it.  I think it's just that I'm not yet comfortable with drop-off, and where her stuff goes.  And since we've lost at least two, possibly three cloth diapers at daycare ...

Maybe if it hadn't come so close after weaning, which I'm still trying to get my head around at times.  My body and my baby have adjusted.  My heart?  Not so much.

And then to top it off ...

Last night I tried her wool longies on her.  The ones I lovingly crocheted for her last winter to use.

That are now two inches too short.

Which is a good excuse to buy more wool yarn and do some more crocheting.  It's also a good excuse to cry some more because apparently my baby?  Isn't a baby anymore at all.