Testing the Waters of Daycare

Heading in with Daddy!

Yesterday, we took Mandy Rose to daycare for the very first time. I have taken this first year off to spend all my time with her and really cement our relationship. Now, I am starting back to school to finish my degree and that puts us in the position of utilizing daycare. We are very fortunate that the hospital that Gary works at has an excellent child development center. All of his co-workers with kids enrolled there love it! It is extremely reasonably priced and very convenient for Gary to drop her off before his shift. Also, being affiliated with the hospital, this daycare has later hours which we needed since one of my classes is an evening class. We are not the normal 9 to 5 family. Gary works second shift at the hospital, so he can be home until 2, but is gone most evenings.

See my spiffy new backpack!

Gary and I have both been really playing up daycare to Mandy Rose. We told her about getting to play with other kids and how they have a really cool playground. We also let her know that she gets to bring her nifty new backpack on the days that she goes! She has been excited about it, but then yesterday morning, every time I brought it up, she would shake her head "no". I thought, "Uh-oh", this could be problematic. But, in usual Mandy Rose form she had absolutely no problems.

"I can totally handle this guys!"

We actually didn't need daycare this day, but we wanted to have her first day be one where we could come and get her if she was really having problems. She was fine. We felt like something was missing all afternoon. I jumped up at one point thinking I had forgotten to get her up from nap. Gary checked the clock every few minutes just waiting until it was time to go pick her up! We love our little girl!!

Diving right in!

We were told that she did great! She was very talkative about all the things she did that afternoon! Gary said she just kind of looked up like, "Oh, hi Dad." when he got there. She gave me the biggest hug tight around my neck when she got home! I think she had a good time, but I also think she missed her Momma and Daddy a wee bit!

I had one more picture to post, but Daddy warned me she might not appreciate its presence in the ether later on in life. I was showing her one of the NEAT things about daycare is the potty that was just her size! Of course, she had to go pee then and I had to take a picture of it! It may not go on the blog, but it is definitely going in the scrapbook!!