First Day at Daycare

I am somewhat of a procrastinator. I think I may have talked about this before. I even posted a facebook status, “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?” (I think it was in regards to unpacking…never fun. It could my life motto, though.) So when I was pregnant, I kept saying, “I need to figure out this whole daycare situation.” I kept putting it off, mainly because that is what I do, but also because it didn’t hit me that I was having a child until, well, she came out a girl.


My MIL enabled me a bit in the daycare situation, because she really wanted to baby-sit her new grandchild. Her FIRST grandchild. And then my mom jumped in and said, “Well, if you would like my help for a little while, I could come up a couple days a week and watch Samantha.” A little while turned into 4 months, for which I am eternally grateful. (Not only would she baby-sit, but she also pulled weeds, made dinner several times, and vacummed. My house and yard miss her…as well as Sam; and Workaholic and I’s stomachs.)


When I started looking at child care centers, I was really hopeful about the one that was literally on my way to and from work. It was inside a church, and they did part-time daycare, and did I mention it was ON THE WAY TO WORK? And it was OK, but who wants to send their kid to a place that is just OK? And then there was another one, which I totally had my mind set on, and then I heard a couple of things and I started to have doubts. So around that time, my husband reminded me that his cousin works at a daycare. And I was a little hesitant, because what if I didn’t like it? What if I got a bad vibe? What if she started going and I was convinced that they were neglecting her and wanted to pull her? I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, sometimes mixing business and family doesn’t work. But I decided to give it a go. It’s not too far out of the way, it is licensed by the state, and Workaholic’s cousin could always keep an eye on Sam.


And I walked in, and I didn’t get a bad vibe. It was bright, and clean, and there was artwork of the kids hanging everyplace. And you could hear kids laughing. They weren’t chained to a sewing machine, forced to sew together T-shirts for Steve & Barry’s on college campuses everywhere at the lowlow price of $7…buy one, get 3 free! I thought, “OK, we’ll try it out, and Samantha will let me know if it isn’t going to work.”


So today was Sam’s first day at daycare. I went in a little earlier than I normally will, lugging her huge bag of diapers and wipes and clothes and bottles and pacifiers and her blanket, and I left her there. I said good-bye, and between me and the kid who wanted out of the highchair, and the little boy who was teething, and the little girl who didn’t want her dad to leave, Samantha was the only one in the room who wasn’t crying.


I realized that I had forgotten Tylenol and proper diaper ointment, so I made a run to Walgreens and used that as an excuse to check in her at lunchtime. And you know what? She was sleeping. On her stomach, with her blanket, in the same clothes. (The clothing thing was a little test…she always has a really dirty diaper in the morning, and if you don’t catch it in a timely manner, it goes up her back. Since she was still in the super-cute outfit I put her in, that means she didn’t sit in her own shit for too long before it was discovered. Yay!)

The women in the room raved about her, how good she was, she wasn’t fussy at all, how she didn’t even cry when she was hungry, she just fed her because it had been about 4 hours since she had eaten. YAY! They followed my instructions! They even said that they wished all babies were JUST LIKE HER. Now, that could be a line of BS that daycare people know to feed parents who drop their kids off for the first time, but I think they were pretty sincere about it. And they knew my husband’s cousin, and had for years, and even knew my MIL’s name when I said that she might stop by. Our cousin had talked about her. So she isn’t just some random kid. I left there feeling good. And I called my MIL, who is probably there as I type this, checking in on her. Which is fine…better than fine. I feel blessed to have so many people care about my little girl.