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September 29, 2006

Britta's big day

Britta started speaking in full sentences less than six months ago. Today, she had her first day of daycare, and I swear, she told me in more detail about her one day of daycare than I've ever gotten out of her 5 year old brother (the guy who has been speaking in full sentences for the last 3 years!) than I have for any one day of his life.

I asked Britta, "What did you do today?" She told me she played house, kitchen and with cheese. She took a nap, woke up and ate some bread and drank some milk. Good Lord, I didn't even have to pry much to get this information.

Same question to Karsten, "What did you do today?" His response, "I did some stuff." I tried to probe, "How was Lunch Bunch? " Lunch Bunch is the afterschool program at his school that he went to for the first time. "Um, fine." Me, "How many kids were there." Him, "little kids ate lunch. We played with a frisbee." I asked a few more questions and then gave up. Another mom told me it is sometimes best not to know what is going on at school as you can imagine bliss. I've been conditioned over the last five years to think lack of information is normal.

Today was a big day for me too. Britta had never been to daycare before. I have been worried about my shy little girl adjusting. I needn't have worried though because when I dropped her off there was a 4 year old girl excited to play house with Britta. There was only one other little boy there playing quietly by himself. The daycare lady told me Britta had a fun day. What a huge relief!

The childcare puzzle piecing has been complex. Karsten is at a small, private kindergarten this year and no daycare wanted to pick him up from school. No daycare wanted to take kids just part-time without me paying for full time. I ended putting Karsten in the afterschool program until 3pm and then found out there is an afterschool/before school daycare for kids at his school.

I finally found a nice in-home daycare for Britta close to our house. I checked glowing references. The only problem was that Britta and Karsten would be split up. The two of them spend so much time together that it made me sad to think of Britta all by herself at daycare. I'm still sad to think they are split up but happy to see Britta thriving out of the shadow of her brother. She really had a fun day.

I'll just imagine her brother had a fun day too.

Posted by jana at September 29, 2006 8:26 PM