The big day finally arrived–today was Miranda and Eleanor’s first day of daycare. Last night, we did all the preparations: we packed up several outfits and bibs for the girls (in case they messed up what they were wearing), we made bottles and labeled them with their names, we wrote instructions on the box of rice cereal, and we packed up some diapers and wipes. Agnes and I were both a little nervous. For me, it was kind of like the feeling I got before the first day of school, except I wasn’t the one going.
This morning, we headed off for the daycare. It was bigger than I pictured it. There were separate areas for each of the different age groups (infants, toddlers, preschool). I guess it may be a little surprising, but I hadn’t seen the place before today. Agnes is the one who took care of everything with checking the place out, putting our names on the waiting list, and filling in the paperwork.
When we arrived, we walked on back to the infant area. We had to take off our shoes to go into the infant area, because all of the infants spend lots of time on the carpet. When we got there, there were already two other kids there, Emily and Tucker. Tucker looked to be about the same age as our girls. He was lying flat on his back crying on the carpet with a bit of a runny nose (yes, we’re expecting our girls to get the inevitable cold). Emily was off to the side propped up against a boppy. She looked younger. Fortunately, I don’t think anyone in the infant class is walking yet, so we don’t have to worry about our girls’ hands being stepped on.
Agnes took Eleanor out of her carseat and put her on the floor near Tucker. Eleanor flipped over and lifted her head in the “cobra” yoga position to take a look around. One of the daycare workers came over with some toys.
When we put Miranda on the floor, she started crying. She was a little fussy. Usually by this time in the morning, she’s taking her nap. I picked her up and carried her around for a bit while Agnes put the girls’ supplies away. One of the workers at the daycare came over to say “hi”, and I let her hold Miranda. I don’t think she was expecting me to take this picture.
After the girls looked like they were settling in, we gave them each a kiss and left. Fortunately, there were no problems in leaving. I think that if we had waited a few months more before starting Miranda and Eleanor with daycare, they would have had more problems with stranger anxiety.
I was working from home today, and throughout the day I considered dropping by to see the girls, but I thought it would be better if I didn’t. They need to get used to not seeing us during the day, and if I show up during the day now, they’ll just get upset when I stop showing up. Still, it was hard to just wait until it was time to pick them up.
This afternoon, Agnes came home and we went to get the girls. Eleanor was awake after taking a nice long three-hour nap. Miranda was taking a small nap after her afternoon bottle. Agnes fed Eleanor the remainder of her afternoon bottle and we checked in with the daycare staff on how things went. It sounded like there were no problems. The girls both refused to eat the rice cereal, which we expected. We found both Eleanor and Miranda in their original outfits, which means there were no big spit-ups or diaper failures. We even got a nice write-up by the daycare on when and how much they ate, when their diapers were changed, and when they slept. The girls were happy to see us again, and when we brought them home, they seemed perfectly normal. I guess we were a little worried that they would be thrown off their schedule or stressed out or something, but there weren’t any signs of it. We played with them, bathed them, fed them their nighttime bottle, and off to bed they went.
Of course, I still have a sink full of bottles to wash, sterilize, refill, and re-label, and we need to pick out outfits for tomorrow, but overall, things went fairly well.