Hellobee

I suppose I jinxed myself after writing a post about getting “organized” to go back to school! The day before school started for both of us, Little Piñata decided to get the sniffles. We’re new to the daycare/school atmosphere (technically Little P is enrolled in the Mother’s Day Out Program), and started getting worried about whether having a cold should keep Little P at home. So we tried to find someone to watch him the next day if he wasn’t feeling up to going to school. Since it would be my first week teaching my 3 year olds, I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to miss work at all last week. They’re so little and need to get used to me as their teacher and shouldn’t have a sub. Mr. Piñata teaches as an adjunct at a local University and it was his first week of classes as well, so he couldn’t watch Little P either. And of course, following Murphy’s Law, both of my parents were out of the country for business.

Thankfully, even though we made back-up plans for his care on both Monday and Wednesday, he ended up being well enough to go to school. It just made things a bit more stressful, calling, planning and figuring things out, but it did help me to be more clear about the illness policy of the school right from the beginning though! I now know that it’s fine to send him to school with a cold, just as long as he hasn’t had a fever in the past 24 hours.

In the end, Little P ended up doing GREAT in his class! I was kind of nervous since he started having separation anxiety back in May when I would leave him with people. Often times this included uncontrollable screaming and I really didn’t want that for him or his teacher. Plus, I was pretty nervous about just one nap. At his school they do one nap starting at 12:00pm and let them sleep as long as possible (although the school day ends at 2:30). He’s 15 months old and usually takes two naps at home, the first one at 10am or so, so I was nervous about him being over-tired and cranky at school. Even though he takes just one nap once or twice a week, on those days it starts around 11/11:30am and it usually lasts about 3 hours. And he certainly isn’t used to sleeping in a room with 4 other toddlers either! But, he ended up doing great for his first week. I left his lovey there and I think that helped with both the separation anxiety and the sleeping. His teacher said he was definitely tired and would fall right asleep at noon, but then slept for 1.5 hours each day. This is quite a bit less daytime sleep than he’s used to, so he was in bed by 6:15pm both nights he had school.

The biggest stressor of the week was Friday. My parents are supposed to watch Little Piñata on Fridays since they both work from home, but my mom was out of country on business and my dad got stuck abroad when he was supposed to come back. So I brought Little Piñata with me to school for the hour of planning time in the morning. Once it was time for my students to come in, we had a friend from church watch him for an hour. Then, Mr. Piñata came between his classes to watch him and even took Little Piñata to the University for the choir rehearsal he was leading. He wore Little P in the Bjorn while he directed the choir! Little P joined in flapping his arms around trying to conduct as well.

Whew! So, it was an interesting week! Thankfully all went well in my class and I just love my students. It’s an adjustment getting used to 3 year olds instead of elementary kids, but I think it’s going to be a great year with my students. I never would have thought that my first week at a totally new job the stressful part would be finding childcare, and not doing my new job duties!

My Classroom

What about you all? How old was your little one when they started daycare and how did they do/nap/eat?