If you would like to go back in time you can read about my anxiety and issues with my current daycare situation. Basically, I just haven’t been in love with it. In July, my current provider had a scheduled week off and I had to find other care for my child. Let me back this up and just say, to make it more of a pain in my ass, she took off a Wednesday to a Wednesday. No, this wasn’t for any reason other than a week off. It is hard enough to find back up child care but to do it with odd days like that is hard enough.
I was very proud of myself to find a back up provider. I’ve known her for years, someone in my yoga class, the original person I wanted my child to go to for daycare and she was available to take my kiddo those wacky days. We even went for an evening to her house so Cora could check the place out and we could get into more detail about how she does things. I left on cloud 9. This was the provider we had been dreaming of! The one to fix my problems! And oh, look, she can take her full-time this winter! Everything was working out wonderfully.
I dropped off Cora for her first day there and then she shot me the look of horror as I walked out the door. I walked to my truck and could hear her screaming at the top of her lungs, wondering why I just left her with strangers. Oh, my mamma heart about went right back in there and said fuck it, I’ll stay home with her. But I knew she would be fine. They always quit crying 5 minutes later and she will make new friends!
Hell, no.
I walked back in, later that day, and I could hear my child wailing. She was presented to me, red-eyed, no pants, and still wearing her lunch. I was told she was a bit of a handful but that is okay! She will get used to it! My heart sank. I looked in her bag and saw she only drank 2 bottles. 2?! She normally goes through 6. 6 because she picks through them, an ounce here 3 ounces there.
We both cried on the way home and I rocked her to sleep that night and prayed for a sign from God. I was questioning my mamma skills. 11pm God gave me a sign in the form of a vomiting child that didn’t need to go to daycare the next two days.
Then came the following week. We had two days to make it through and I had convinced myself that the prior tough day had been to her starting to not feel well. Needless to say, those two days were not as bad as the first but they weren’t magical. She hardly napped or ate. She didn’t want to make new friends and came home wearing her lunch everyday. For fucks sake did no one have a wash cloth at some point throughout the day?! I walked away that last day and felt defeated. Maybe this wasn’t the answer to my problems. And if this wasn’t the answer, then what was?
The following day she went back to her regular daycare. She clapped when we walked in the door and lunged to the floor. She went to her boyfriend and mauled him. He in turn gave her his binky. They chased one of the older girls around and she gave no fucks when I walked out the door. She slept hard when she took naps. Ate all her food and was completely normal when I picked her up.
So you know what, maybe I need to put aside my own issues, my own future worries, my own personal debates and listen to what my child is telling me. She is happy every day. She has friends. She likes it there. Sure, she can’t talk and tell me everything about her day but if I stop and listen close enough, I can figure it out. I’m walking away taking this as a lesson.
Through My Mistakes 
This post totally resonates with me. When I toured the two daycare options I had for H, neither of them appealed to me. They didn’t have the warm, comforting feeling I thought I wanted out of a daycare. But, I had no choice but to pick one and send him to it as daycare waitlists in my town are insanely long. We’re talking 18+ months to get into even just a decent daycare. My work owns two daycares and as an employee we got bumped to the top of the waitlist. Anyway, despite my feelings of hesitance on the daycare options, we are now two and a half weeks into him going to the one I picked and…he loves it. He does just like Kora does and claps and waves when he arrives. He eagerly goes to the waiting arms of the caretakers and barely blinks when I leave. He comes home fed, rested, clean and extremely happy. I now love the caretakers as they seem to truly love H. The thought of taking him anywhere else now makes me feel sad because he loves it there so much. I think, what seems to be important to us as their parents, isn’t quite as important to the kids. They want to be cared for, lots of toys and activity, fun other kids and that’s pretty much it. The daycare doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to be functional for our little ones. and it sounds as though the one you thought was your dream daycare was not functional at all. I can’t believe they returned her to you covered in her lunch every day. WTF?? H’s daycare has us store an entire change of clothes in his cubby hole in case he gets covered in food or art projects. It seems like such a common sense thing to wipe kids down after eating, change their clothes if they are covered in food. It’s not rocket science!
* now I will go search for your earlier posts about the daycare situation. catching up on everything I have missed!
See you know exactly what I mean! Sometimes we get caught up in our adult world and forget that their world just needs the simple basics. Sadly, I always keep two extra outfits in her bag that she could have been changed into but apparently they didn’t find that necessary. But seriously, wearing her food. Just, no.