The End of the Third Week of Daycare, wherein all our hopes and anxieties turn out to be well-founded

Once we realized we really had to find a daycare for Cora, and once we found one we liked, and once we had visited, and once we had her signed up, I had a moment of awful realization. I liked and trusted the people involved, I believed she would make friends and enjoy her time there, I also believed that this would be good for her developmentally. But...she would also be entering her own world, one I would have very limited access to.

The smarter part of my brain told me this had always been the case. When Cora was forming, swimming, and grabbing her feet inside me she was in her own world. I might contain that world, but I in no way knew it. Even as we learned how to communicate about milk and more and toys and diapers, I really only knew the outer contours of her world. But now, three days a week, what I mostly know about her days are what and when she ate and whether or not she slept (mostly...not), if she went to the library, and maybe what kind of art project she did.

But what really has brought it home lately are the songs. She knows songs we don't! The other morning she was singing, Chris reported, first really high and then really low, "Row, row, row, row...row, row, row, row....whee!" She learns words like juice and the names of the other kids. She wants to hold and swing hands while she sings. She wants her snack at 10:00...she somehow knows when it's 10:00! Even though this confirms all those anxieties I had, I also love to see it.

And, last Thursday afternoon, when I arrived to pick her up, the kids were just coming outside for their outside playtime. What a thrill to see Cora, holding her teacher's hand, walking out the door. And she walked over to me when she saw me. Whew! Friday afternoon we went to a museum, and she walked from the parking to the front doors holding our hands - quite a distance for someone so new to the activity!