Diary of a Daycare Mom, Bento is Back!

My girls have been in their new daycare for 4 months now.  I've come a long way since that first drop-off.

I LOVE my girls' teachers.  Kaia's teacher seems to have a special place in her heart for Kaia, which Darren and I couldn't be more grateful for.  I can tell that somedays she takes extra time for her, as Kaia's hair will be re-done after nap time, when it can get messy/frazzly.  Often, when I come to pick her up, Kaia is planted on her teacher's lap.  *adore*  She is also potty training Kaia, which if you have been following this blog for a while, you know that I am poorly equipped to potty train.  Bless her for her efforts, and may the odds ever be in her favor!

Tallie's teacher is awesome as well.  Tallie really cracks her up, and I get one or two funny stories a week from her.  Tallie is also becoming quite the teacher's pet- sometimes her entire class will be in trouble (which means you can't play outside…which I personally think is counter-intuitive) and she is the only one that isn't.  So, I think she enjoys some extra freedoms on some days.  I also worry, though, that this may be isolating her from her peers.  It probably isn't.  I shouldn't be so neurotic.  I'm sure she's fine.  Stop being neurotic, Britni.

Leaving them in the morning at this point seems to be a little harder for them than for me.  Kaia sometimes requires 4 hugs before I can detach and walk out.  Sometimes even with those, she will run out towards the entry way, where I am checking her in for the day, and give me another hug.  Tallie is also super shy some days.  I can't figure out what the predictor of this behavior is.  Just some days Tallie will lean into me and not want to go sit down for breakfast.  I try to show her a little extra love, and cuddle with her that afternoon.  Maybe it has something to do with a growth spurt/developmental milestone?

I also love how much my girls are learning scholastically.  Tallie especially seems to be taking off with writing.  She writes words and names all over the place.  She asks how to spell words that she doesn't know, and likes to create sentences.  I love watching this unfold.  We have an easel in the kitchen that has a dry-erase board on it, and each day she has different words and sentences on it.  It seems that what she writes is a good reflection of what's on her mind and in her heart, which I suppose carries with you through adult-hood.  She writes quite a few things about loving different family members, and those family members loving other people or things.  It really is pretty sweet, and I should snap more pictures of her alphabetical endeavors.

Tallie is also taking off artistically.  She creates these SUPER COOL pieces of art that I can't wait to frame.  She makes large interesting shapes, and then fills in the negative spaces with different colors and visual textures.  I'm pretty sure she's way advanced ;)  In light of this, I have finally decided what to do with a blank, glaring wall in our living room- I'm going to string art across it, and title is 'Super Important Artwork' or something.  I'll do that right after I get the upstairs bathroom painted, and T's headboard painted, and their dress-up clothes hung how I want them, and after… ;)  Someday, right?

Back to daycare, though.  The one thing that bugs me about the daycare is the food they serve.  Processed, sugary, yucky food.  Veggies are canned.  Meat is encased in carbs and frozen.  Sometimes that gross government pizza that schools serve is served for breakfast as 'Breakfast Pizza'.  Yuck.  Twice I have literally seen that my girls were served Twinkies and Juice for snack.  I very rarely buy juice for my girls at home, and even then it's usually because of 'stuck' problems ;)  That snack pretty much sealed my decision to go back to Bentos.  So, I made a Dr. appointment for Tallie, and got him to write a note that she needed to bring her food from home. (Helicopter Mom, 1 point)  The administrators at the daycare took about 3 days to calm down after I informed them that I was packing Tallie's lunch.  They couldn't understand why I was doing this if she doesn't have any allergies.  But Tallie's teacher totally understood where I was coming from, which made me feel less anxious about the decision.  I also made it very clear to Tallie that if she feels left out about this, that we can stop.  And before I had the Dr. write the note, I made sure that Tallie was on-board with the decision.  I have her choose her food, and so far so good.  Yesterday, instead of oreos for snack, she chose 5 cherry tomatoes from her Bento Box, and she loved it.  I love that she loves veggies!  If I get creative again with her Bentos, I will post some pictures, but the creative ones take time…so don't hold your breath, y'all!

So there's the latest updates with daycare.