Natalie’s Blog

Just look how grown up Natalie is becoming:

In the last month Natalie has accomplished some pretty cool developmental tasks. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s made all these connections since moving to a daycare where she feels comfortable and happy. She can identify almost the whole alphabet and sing the ABCs (of course L M N O P are a little mumbly). Natalie can count to 20. After a couple of months of saying sentences here and there, I think we can officially say that Natalie is “speaking in sentences.” Sometimes her grammar needs work; for example, she says, “I turn it on, light!” This morning, after I accidentally stepped on her foot, Natalie said to me, “I sorry, Mommy!” She can put some of her shoes on all by herself. And after months and months of trying, Natalie learned to jump!

After seeing how much Natalie likes playing with dolls at Melissa’s house, we bought Natalie her first official baby doll. She is doing a lot of pretend play with dolls—feeding them, putting them to sleep, etc. But she still sometimes prefers to read to her troll, or give it (her? him?) a bottle:

She can’t yet undulate pitch, but she can recite the words from lots of songs: Happy Birthday, Rubber Ducky, I’m a Little Teapot, Ring Around the Rosie, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Five Little Monkeys, and We are the Dinosaurs. In the car, Natalie requests the songs she wants to hear by name. She also often requests that the music be “loud!”

Sleep continues to be challenging (we really could write several posts, but it’s too depressing to write and to read about). We’re making some progress in terms of implementing and sticking to a bedtime routine (bath, bottle & books, nurse to sleep) but it still takes a long time (averaging 45 minutes) for Natalie to fall asleep. And she still wakes up at least a few times a night. For about two weeks, Natalie was sleeping for a 4 hour stretch at the beginning of the night. We considered that a great improvement, which should indicate how bad things have been.

Overall, Natalie has been much happier in the last month (again, since we made the daycare switch). She’s communicating better, is less clingy, and playing more independently. She’s like a little monkey, just bursting with energy and love and hugs.

Here is Natalie showing off her skills with letters and numbers:

Letters and Numbers from nataliecaroline on Vimeo.

Any doubts I had about changing Natalie’s day care have been completely alleviated. On the first day at Melissa’s, Natalie didn’t cry at all when I left. The second day she asked to go there. On the third day, she didn’t want to go home when I picked her up! We get far more information from Melissa about Natalie’s mood and her activities than we got at the Goddard School. In addition to the details we get about Natalie’s day through conversation, Melissa sends home a daily sheet where she logs all Natalie’s diapering, sleeping, and eating activities.

Of course the transition hasn’t been completely without challenges. While Natalie hasn’t been crying for her parents, last week Melissa reported that Natalie gets quite upset when Melissa would stray too far (like more than 2 feet) away. Today, Melissa told us that she explained to Natalie that if she wanted to stay with Melissa, she could follow her, but she didn’t need to cry. That seemed to do the trick! Melissa said the rest of the day was tear-free.

Another positive change has been with the artwork Natalie brings home. Goddard would always send home these elaborate art projects (like a construction paper Isreali flag or a hanging jelly fish) that may have looked impressive, but left us wondering what part Natalie actually did herself. At Melissa’s, Natalie has brought home art projects involving markers, finger paints, and chalk, all of which look like pictures she created herself.

Natalie sums it up by saying, “Missa’s…FUN!”

We took pictures of Natalie on her first day and on her last day of Goddard, as well as pictures of her at Melissa’s—her expressions say it all…

Looking happy and innocent because she doesn’t know what’s happening:

Looking scared and sad because she knows what school is all about (she didn’t look this way every morning, or we would have taken her out of there much sooner!):

Here are some pictures of Natalie playing at Melissa’s. Look how comfortable she is!

…Hello, Melissa!

Starting tomorrow, Natalie will be going to a new daycare—an in-home daycare. We’ve realized that big daycare is not the right setting for Natalie or for us. Although she got comfortable with her teachers, wasn’t crying at drop-off, and napped well at school, Natalie was not thriving at Goddard. Most people we talked to about daycare told us that Natalie would learn more things faster being in a daycare environment. But after going to school 3 days per week for 5 months, Natalie still wasn’t talking while she was there. Her teachers reported that if they ever heard her babbling to herself while playing, as soon as they tried to engage her, she shut down and wouldn’t respond. Although this concerned us, Natalie has been thriving in general, so we didn’t start looking for other options until Natalie started transitioning to the toddler room.

When we toured the school last February, they stressed how slowly they transitioned the children from one room to the next. I had expressed my concerns to the school director about Natalie adjusting to the toddler room (the toddler room starts at 18 months) a month or so before Natalie was scheduled to start, given how long it took Natalie to adjust to school in the first place. Again, I was assured that the transition would happen very slowly, with the children visiting their new classroom with a familiar teacher for increasing lengths of time. We received a packet of information about the transition and the toddler room that stated that the transition could take 1-4 weeks depending on the child. Her transition was scheduled to start on June 30.

When I got to school on June 30, the head teacher in the infant room looked surprised to see us and told me that Natalie was to be dropped off in the toddler room. I was flabbergasted. I assumed that the start of the transition would be the start of the visits to the new room. Then I noticed that every room seemed to have crying children, which is normally not the case. Jennifer, the head infant room teacher, explained that there would be lots of crying today because a number of children were starting in new rooms. This was not transitioning, it was making kids change their routines cold-turkey.

I told Jennifer that there was no way I was leaving Natalie in the new room. After leaving her in the infant room, I spoke with the school owners and the director, who were surprised that I didn’t realize that that day was the day Natalie would be in the toddler room. They also couldn’t tell me if Natalie had ever visited the toddler room before. We felt that despite our best efforts to tell the school our concerns, they were not communicating with us. They apologized and said they would do better.

The next day, I went with Natalie to visit the toddler room. When Natalie and I left, I had a horrible feeling in the pit in my stomach. I knew there was no way I could ever leave Natalie alone there. There was nothing abusive, neglectful, or incompetent happening. The three teachers in the toddler room were doing all the things they were supposed to do: singing songs, reading books, giving out snacks, etc., but in my opinion they may as well have been robots. None of them seems to display any enthusiasm for the children. None of them seemed engaged or appeared to enjoy their jobs. Those factors, combined with a higher student to teacher ratio in the toddler room, plus difficulty communicating with the school management led us to the decision to find another child care arrangement for Natalie.

When we first started looking at daycares, a friend recommended we look at Monday Morning, Inc. For some reason at the time, I pooh-poohed the idea. On one hand I regret not looking into it before, and on the other hand, I realize that we couldn’t have known that daycare wouldn’t work for Natalie until we tried it. Anyway, Monday Morning does all the vetting for the clients, and does ongoing inspections and support for the providers. They led us to Melissa, who will start watching Natalie 3 days per week tomorrow. Melissa worked at a daycare for years before having her own children, comes highly recommended, and has a sweet, down-to-earth personality. It may be another hard transition for Natalie, but we’re hoping she’ll adjust to the smaller, homey setting a little easier and quicker than she took to daycare. Two of her teachers at Goddard told us that they also believed that Natalie would be better off in a smaller setting with fewer children.

Melissa has two of her own kids, ages 6 and 4. The 6-year-old goes to school, and Melissa also watches a 2.5-year-old and will have a 5-month-old starting in October. So for most of the day, it’s a 4:1 child to “teacher” ratio. We’ve visited Melissa every week since we decided to make the switch, and taken and looked at pictures and videos of Natalie with Melissa and the other kids. From the first time we went to her house, Natalie appeared to be comfortable. When I asked Natalie to recall our last visit to Melissa’s, she exclaimed, “Fun!” Fingers crossed that Melissa’s will still be fun when Mommy leaves her there and goes to work!

Are you still reading?? Man, I can be long-winded! To balance my wordiness, here are some of the latest pictures of Natalie.

I put her hair in pigtails for the first time a couple of weeks ago…although she likes having “2 ponytails!” she screams and wiggles through the process of hair dressing, so I doubt it’s a look that will be repeated anytime soon.

Natalie loves to color and eat at her new just-her-size table. I love that I bought it from Craig’s List for a mere $15!!

Natalie enjoying an afternoon dip in her kiddie pool:

Natalie mad that I won’t let her hold the camera:

Everyone told us that the first few months of daycare are filled with illness after illness because your child is being exposed to a lot more germs. Is it true? I’ll recount our daycare experience so far:

Week One (3/3/08 - 3/7/08)

The Friday of Natalie’s first week of daycare, she woke up in the middle of the night crying. I made the really, really bad mistake of sitting down next to her in her bed before turning on the lights, cause when I sat down, I realized that she had thrown up. Ewww! She threw up a few more times over the next couple of hours, requiring several pajama changes for both of us. She eventually went back to sleep and was completely fine the next day.

Week Two (3/10/08 - 3/14/08)

That week was when she had her terrible diaper rash, bad enough to require Natalie to miss daycare on Wednesday and take a trip to the doctor’s office.

Week Three (3/17/08 - 3/21/08)

Natalie only went to school on Monday of this week, because Monday night she had a mild fever. She still had a fever Tuesday morning, which meant that even if it cleared up that day, she couldn’t go to school on Wednesday, because children have to be fever-free for 24-hours to attend school. In the middle of the night Tuesday, her fever spiked to 105.6!!! She and I took a luke-warm shower, which brought it down to 103. Then the motrin finally kicked in and she was able to go back to sleep with a temperature of 102.5. We took her to the doctor for the second Wednesday in a row this morning. The doctor found that her lungs, throat, and ears were all clear. He did a blood test to check for a hidden infection, (like a urinary tract infection) which was also clear. No elevated white blood cell count or anything else to indicate a problem. So, she has a virus that we’ll let run it’s course.

Was all this sickness because she’s in daycare or just a coincidence? We’ll ever know for sure. One thing I do know is that all these absences from school are not helping Natalie adjust to being there. It’s getting a little better, but still not great.

Grandma had the brilliant idea of taking some picture of Natalie’s teachers and classmates and spending time everyday looking at them. She got the idea because Natalie loves her Aunt Katy and has always been comfortable with her, even though Natalie has only seen Katy (who lives in CA) a few times in her life. The reason? Because we have pictures of Katy that we look at and talk about. If you ask Natalie “who’s that?” she says “Taty!” In fact, she learned to say Katy well before she learning to say Grandma or Nama.

The school director and Natalie’s teachers were enthusiastic about the project and took some pictures this week. Thank goodness, because between Natalie’s illness and the school being closed for Good Friday, she’ll have a whole week before going back to school.

Here is Natalie with one of her teachers and classmates at the beginning of the day, eyes still red from crying after Mama left:

And looking calmer at the end of the day, but eyes red from her impending illness:

The second day drop-off was a little rougher than the first day. The first day Natalie really didn’t know what she was in for, so she had nothing to cry about. The second day she wailed like a heartbroken little girl whose parents just abandoned her. It was really, really, really hard to walk away. Then I made the mistake of calling the school only 15 minutes later to check on her. The teacher explained that another teacher was holding her and they were trying their best to distract her and transition her as best they could. I could hear her crying in the background. I felt physically ill—as if my heart could break. All morning I had a big lump in my throat and an ache in my chest. I felt so, so awful, which led me to imagine how awful Natalie must have been feeling…small…frightened…confused…in an unfamiliar place with strangers…unable to communicate. Then I had to stop that line of thinking for my own sanity.

Thankfully, when we called at 1 pm, we heard a very positive report. The teacher told us that although Natalie had a rough start to the morning, she perked up a lot when they did an art project. She also had fun reading stories and singing songs, ate nearly all of her lunch and went down for a nap with no problem.

When we picked Natalie up in the afternoon, she looked to be in better spirits than she had when we picked her up on Monday. The teachers reported that Natalie got upset when other parents come to pick up their kids—their theory is that she gets scared of seeing new people.

I have to keep telling myself that Natalie knows we love her. The fact that she reacts strongly to us leaving her shows that she has a healthy attachment to us. I have to remind myself that going to daycare is a tough transition, but I really think Natalie will love it once she’s adjusted. But I think tomorrow I’ll wait until the afternoon before I call to check on her.

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.

That’s right! This Mama is returning to the world of full-time paid work. Although my plan all along had been to go back to Womanspace full-time at some point, it was still a difficult decision. In early January I approached my boss about coming back full-time in June when Natalie turned 18-months-old. She agreed, then came back to me a couple of weeks later and said there was an immediate opening for a full-time counselor. There might be another position in 6 months, but no guarantees. My initial reaction to think, “Oh, no! I can’t possibly ABANDON my BABY this soon!!!” Just a bit irrational, I know. After much thought and debate, I feel confident that this is the right choice for our family. And ever since we made the decision, I’m finding that I can’t wait until March 3 when I start.

Part of what made us feel better about the decision was finding the right day care. After doing much research and a few site-visits, we settled on The Goddard School in Hamilton. We liked the center, the directors, the teachers in the infant room, and the school’s policies. It feels like a community, whereas other day cares we visited felt like institutions. We know the adjustment period may be hard on Natalie, but we’re confident that once she gets used to the routine, she’ll love going to school. We’ve been the school twice now, and both times Natalie was eager to explore the classrooms, point out all the animals on the hallway mural, and interact with the other children. Natalie’s grandmothers have generously agreed to continue spending 1 day a week with her, so she’ll only go to Goddard on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

We’ll keep you posted on how the transition goes.