Daycare Dramas

Those of you who know me, know that I am not overly prone to complaining about daycare. 99.9% of the time I am lucky to have superb daycare. We have had a few stumbles with Leif this past year in his first year of preschool, but we are on a good path with him. He will start in a new room on June 16th, again as a first year preschooler.

With his late summer birthday we don't expect to be putting him in kindergarten at age five. Of course it is all complicated given that we are in private preschool, he will do kindergarten at the private school and he will work at his own pace. So I guess I should be saying, we won't be putting him into 1st grade when he is 6. While I don't relish the thought of paying another year of tuition... and I still hold out hopes for another baby before I am 40 without having to pay three daycare/preschool tuitions, this is the best thing for him. And insuring his success in the future is the most important among those other things.

Then there is Skadi.

I left dropoff yesterday crying. I haven't cried dropping off a child at daycare since Leif's first day of daycare. I sat in my car and talked to AB on the phone contemplating going back in, retrieving my child, declaring myself on FMLA for the next three weeks and taking her home.

AB talked me down saying he would do some checking around and actually did end up with a few other options. I went to my office and waited the long 30 minutes before picking up the phone and calling her daycare to see if she had calmed down. She had. She said hi to me on the phone and was sitting at the table in Room Chaos eating crackers.

It is only three weeks until she starts at Leif's school. They thought of her having to transition twice to another intermediate temporary care before going to the other school kills me. She doesn't transition well at all. But it is an option. As is my taking 3 weeks off (without pay) to stay home with her.

She has two teachers right now. Quiet and Mean. Quiet is the head teacher who is always changing diapers. I mean when you have 14 toddlers in a room what else does one teacher do most of the time? Mean likes to sit there with her clipboard yelling and complaining.

Mean walked in with us this morning. She immediately hit the roof when she saw one of the children on the little kid size sink.

After she screamed at him she went off talking to me. "I don't know who the hell thought that a sink in this room was appropriate, but it isn't. That is THE stupidest idea ever." (Was not thrilled about her saying "hell" and "stupid" in front of the kids, but that is just something to add to my list.)

I said nothing.

See at the school Skadi will go to they also have a sink. And they have a stool. And they teach the kids in this age group how to use the stool to climb up, wash their hands, get a drink of water, turn the water on and off and to use the sink one at a time. And yes... they can play in it too.

Because it is JUST water.

My mantra is three weeks. Just three more weeks.