Biscuit in training

I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a hard time sending Biscuit to day care. We went to tour several places while I was pregnant, and I left each one crying. Jeff would say, "Did you not like the place?" And I'd always say, "It's fine. I just don't want to send him off with total strangers for hours at a time."

But I also knew that 1. we can't afford for me not to work and 2. and most importantly, I need to work for myself, too. So I knew the day care thing was something I had to do.

I feel like we made a good choice. Jeff had a cold the day we were supposed to tour this place, so I told him I'd go alone and let him know what I thought. Then if he wanted to do a tour later, we could.

I took a tour and liked the place (still cried on the way out), and Jeff said if I had a good feeling about it, it was fine by him.

As my pregnancy neared the end, I started getting nervous about the place I had chosen. I called my Mama and said, "What if they made everything nice because I was coming for a tour. I wonder what it would be like if I just walked in unannounced?"

So when she came up after Biscuit arrived, Mama and Jeff dropped by the day care unannounced. They were both pleased with what they saw. They liked the people there, and they both said all the kids seemed happy. And that's a good sign.

That said, the first week or so that I was back at work, I cried every morning and called at least once during the day. And every time, everything was fine.

But now that Biscuit has been there for a while, I'm really glad he's in day care. Despite bringing home little illnesses (including the cold I have right now), he's socializing with other kids, he's in a safe environment with people who know about learning and development, and best of all, I've got help with teaching him all the things he needs to learn right now.

The day care teachers told me that when I got ready for him to try cereal or baby food, all I had to do was let them know, and they'd start introducing him to it. I told them that I appreciated their offer, but I wanted to at least get him started. After all, how could I get the great pictures and videos of him and the awful faces he made if I wasn't there for the first few feedings?

But after a few times of feeding and refeeding and refeeding, I was wishing for some help. So I started sending baby food to day care. In less than a week, you could hold a spoonful of food in front of Biscuit, and his little mouth would fly right open. Those teachers (one in particular) had trained my boy.

We've been using his Bumbo chair for feedings, but as he's getting bigger, I wanted to go ahead and set up his high chair. So this evening, he had his butternut squash with corn in his new high chair.

I sat him in the chair and strapped him in. Then I turned around to get the tray off the table. When I turned back to Biscuit, he had both arms raised up. I thought, "What is he doing?" Then I realized, he's been eating in a high chair ever since we started sending baby food to day care. His little arms went up because that's what he's learned to do when the high chair tray is coming his way.

Every time something like that happens, I have a little bit less of a problem with sending him to day care.