Natalie’s Blog

Our plan was to get Natalie to bed early yesterday so she’d be well-rested for her first day. Natalie gets cranky if she hasn’t slept enough, a trait she gets from me. She had slept in on Sunday morning, so we tried to prevent her from napping to force an early bedtime. The plan completely backfired. Natalie fell asleep in the car at 4pm, took a 1 hour nap, and then (despite several tries beforehand) didn’t get to bed until midnight!!!! So we were all a little tired and groggy this morning—not the best way to start the first day of school. Quite to my surprise, however, Natalie was in good spirits as we headed to the Goddard School.

Here she is eating Cheerios (Organic Morning O’s actually) on the way to school:

When we got to Natalie’s classroom, we stowed all her stuff (sleeping bag, two changes of clothes, blanket, and mousy) in her cubby, hung her coat (2 coats actually—one for the car and one for going outside) on the hook, and put her lunch (peas, grapes, veggie burger, and yogurt, plus a cup of water, 2 cups of milk and 2 bottles) away in the refrigerator. We let Natalie loose to play with some toys while we gave the head teacher the “Natalie Information Sheet” we wrote up:

At this point, Chris and I both started to feel a little panicked, but I think Natalie was too confused and too busy looking at all the kids and teachers and toys to realize what was happening. When we left, she was sitting at the table getting ready for snack and barely looked up when we kissed her good-bye. I only shed a few tears as we walked away from the classroom. Whew—not at all the tear-fest I was expecting!

We called the school around 1 pm to see how Natalie was and were shocked to hear that she was taking a nap! The teacher reported that unfortunately Natalie’s good mood didn’t last very long after we left. She was clingy with the teachers, reluctant to get down even during outside play time, cried during lunch and didn’t eat much. As we predicted, with little sleep the night before, she was tired and cranky and probably ready for nap-time well before noon. We resisted the urge to pick her up early.

When we arrived at school at 4:15, we peeked through the window before going in. Natalie was sitting on a teacher’s lap watching the other kids play. When we went in, it was clear that she had been crying—the teachers explained that she started getting upset when a few other kids got picked up by their parents. The funny thing is, when we greeted her, she seemed more interested in my car keys than in either of us. Thankfully, the teachers reported that Natalie slept for almost two hours and woke up in good spirits! She ate some yogurt for snack, drank a bottle, and enjoyed playing outside. All in all, she did very well on her first day!

Natalie was happy and giggly in the car, and wasn’t even desperate to nurse as I expected she would be when we got home. We had a nice time playing and eating dinner. Around 7 pm, Natalie started saying “night-night” and was asleep by 7:20!!! By 7:45 all the dishes were done and Chris and I were sitting on the couch with our laptops and our feet up. If we can stick to this schedule, we’ll be golden. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that she doesn’t wake up soon and think she’s had a nap…

Natalie starts going to day care this Monday. That’s just two days away!! I’m not sure it’s hit me yet…either that or I have no anxiety about it, which I can’t imagine is true. I think I’m just not allowing myself to get nervous about it. We’ve been busy preparing and gathering all the supplies we need. Part of the reason we picked the Goddard School was that we supply all the diapers, wipes, and food. While it might be easier to send her to a school where we don’t have to worry about packing lunches or diapers, we felt better being able to provide the diapers that we know work for Natalie and food we know she likes. Everything that goes into school must be labeled with her first and last name, so we’ve fired up the label-maker!

The other thing we are required to supply is a toddler-size sleeping bag for Natalie to take naps on. When I explained to the school director that Natalie has never fallen asleep without nursing or being in motion (stroller, car, walking, beco carrier, etc) she assured me that once Natalie sees all the other kids laying on their sleeping bags taking naps, she’ll follow suit. We hope she’s right! So we chose a cute fleece sleeping bag with airplanes on it. When I took it out of the package and laid it on the ground to see how big it was, Natalie immediately laid down on it. Maybe there’s hope that she’ll actually take a nap at school:

Since she’s going to have to learn to fall asleep without her usual comforts, we at least wanted her to have her lovey. But we didn’t want to risk losing her mouse by taking it back and forth to school. So we bought one just for school plus a few spares. We didn’t realize how worn her mouse had gotten until we saw the comparison:

We’re hoping for as smooth a transition as possible. We’ll keep you posted.