Daycare

So Thomas has been in daycare full time for a week now and he appears to be doing extremely well. (André and I aren't doing too badly, either, though I had to find ways to prevent myself from picking him up early nearly every day.) By Thursday of this week Thomas left our house without crying & today was a banner day because he got dropped off without crying. Yippee!

Getting dropped off with no tears is especially important because André is the primary drop-off parent. My school starts at 8:05 and is 30+ minutes away, so André & T do the drop-off every morning. Poor André has had to survive the sight of his son screaming & twisting to get back to him day after day... but since I do the pick-up, André doesn't see Thomas playing contentedly & happily at the end of the day. Let's just say that we are all happy that Thomas isn't crying so much any more.

And speaking of being happy, I must now admit my secret: I already love many of the things I mocked about this particular daycare before we began. For example, they have a webcam so we can go on-line and see what our children are doing anytime during the day (except when they're outside). I mocked this mercilessly - "What? We can't survive 5 minutes without knowing what our precious children are doing?" I love it. Seriously. It's jerky & there's no sound & I check it regularly. I can't explain it except to say that I just like seeing him. He's cute & I miss him & there it is.

I also mocked the "report cards" we get. Yes, it's all true. We get daily report cards that tell us about food & diaper changes & naps &, mostly importantly, what our child did during the day. This is clearly ridiculous. I mean, the food and naps makes sense, but the narrative? Honestly, they can barely talk. But it's so darn cute I can't stand it. I've saved the entire first week's worth. I smile when I think about his teacher writing things like "Thomas appeared to be drawn to cooperative play," (Ha! That was a generous interpretation.) or "He played with every ball we have" (Now that sounds like my boy.) or, best of all, Friday's report card which said, "Thomas had an amazing day!"

And yes, I am completely aware that I just made you all read quotes from T's report cards at age 14 months (he's 15 months on Monday, ladies & gentlemen). I am going to be insufferable. Wait, I already am insufferable. But seriously, he's so cute you just have no idea...

I'll stop now. Keep your fingers crossed that next week goes well, too. For all that things are good, he still isn't napping well there, though supposedly that will come. And next week - on Tuesday - I abandon Thomas and André to their own devices for the mornings. I will be leaving the house just after T wakes up. We'll try to keep you updated on how that goes!

Ducks in a row

For a few weeks now Thomas has been creating projects for himself. It started when he began moving some very light plastic children's chairs from the deck to the kitchen to the playroom and then back again. He would do this two or three times before he got tired.

Next came the ducks. He has four rubber duckies (thanks Aunt Bridget) and one black pirate duck (Grandma Leslie thought she gave this to André a while ago) which he plays with in the bathtub at night. Now he wakes up in the morning, "chats" with me for a minute and then says "DUCK". We go into the bathroom where he gets the ducks from the tub - if I have been especially clever, I've lined the ducks up in a row on the side of the tub the night before & Thomas claps in delight. Then he takes the ducks, two by two, into his bedroom and throws them on the floor. Once they are all there, he takes them back to the bathroom. Sometimes, if the stars are properly aligned, he takes a duck or two into our bedroom and gives them to Daddy to wake him up.

Project three is the magnetic letters on the side of the fridge (there are about 10). Thomas has a strong need to remove these letters - no mean feat for little fingers - and carry them to his booster seat. He throws them in until he's sure that they're all off the fridge, then he carries on with his day.

Smaller projects include getting tennis balls into and out of a tennis ball can, putting rocks into an old egg carton, (thanks to Grandma Shirley for those two) and stacking old containers into one another (a Grandma Patti creation).

I'll see if I can get some project pictures to go along with the descriptions...