Daycare...

So today was Addison’s first day of daycare so of course I have to blog about it because I consider this a big milestone in all of our lives! Grams & Addison scoped this place out last week and Addison loved it there and didn’t want to leave so I went later that same day to make sure I agreed with Addison’s decision :-) It is an in home daycare on farm land (yes we have farms smack dab in the middle of the city - crazy!) and it is about a minute from my house. How convenient is that?!? They have lots of horses, goats, a pot bellied pig, 2 small dogs and a wonderful shaded play area outside. So though I was nervous about taking her and wondering how she would handle it, I woke up this morning feeling pretty confident. We arrived at 8 this morning and I took her in. She immediately went to the back door to see the dogs and goats. I stayed for a few minutes going over last minute details with the girl and off I went! I said bye and Addison peeked around the girls legs at me and the tears began. So I walked very quickly to the car before I felt the urge to go back in and check on her!! I thought about her all morning but decided to wait to call and check on her until after lunch (even the girl was like “we expected you to call hours ago!”) and they said she had a pretty rough morning. It sounded like she was truly okay though (just a little scared and confused as to where she was) and napping when I called. The ladies said she would just stand & stare at the other kids and then eventually join them in the fun (there are leaders and there are followers and Addi is definitely a follower!). Derek and I went to pick her up around 5 and she was sitting on one of the ladies laps reading a book with the saddest face I have ever seen – you could tell she was trying to be strong but was just barely holding back the tears. Once she saw us, she cheered right up and as we were leaving she was pointing to all the animals and showing her dad all the toys in the backyard. I know this will get easier the more she goes (on all of us, Grams included!) but for now we are only going to take her twice a week.

And onto the big girl bed… it has been such a struggle (but I keep hearing the first week is the worst!). We haven’t slept in almost a week :-) One night she woke up every hour on the hour crying (we put up a gate and she would stand there and scream). Another night she woke up at 3:30 am and never went back to sleep (oh you should have seen the black circles around my eyes that day at work!) and last night she only woke up only once and went right back to sleep!! We think we are making progress!!!!