Quarterly Report

I feel like I'm at work - I report out every quarter or so on here!

Life is just busy. I mean BUSY. Claire has grown into this little mini-me repeating everything we say. She can count to 30, can count to 100 by 10's, she LOVES Baby Signing Time DVDs, she knows her shapes and is working on colors. She leans towards math quite a bit; this is not from me. I hate math.

We're also moving slowly into the world of potty training. We read books about potty training, sit on our potty, and talk about going potty. But we're not at the point of actually trying yet. Mostly because we just got use to the potty itself (as in, we're no longer screaming bloody murder on it or throwing it across the room). But more so because we started daycare (aka, "school") this week. Oh my, has it been a week.

Just to put this in perspective, I stayed home with Claire for 7 weeks. After that, I returned to work full-time. At that point, Claire began spending the day with her Grandpa T. Grandpa watched her full-time until she turned 18 months. To give Grandpa T a break, we hired a nanny to come watch Claire at home for 3 days a week. That was our routine all summer. So for 23 months, Claire has been the only child with a caregiver focusing solely on her. Now she's in an unfamiliar classroom with 8 other kids and 2 adults she doesn't really know.

It will eventually be fine, but it's slow-going. She has cried for the better part of the last 4 days. She has refused lunch twice, and slept for a total 3.5 hours at nap time so far. She usually naps 1.5-2 hours a day. It's been hard on us all, but I know in my heart this is the best thing for her. She loves to learn, and she'll learn to love this. The daycare is phenomenal and her teachers are sincerely caring and compassionate. I have high hopes this will all work out, but as you can see from her first day, Claire is not so sure....