RIP Summer Vacation

It’s the night before Daycare and all through the house, the mother is stressing, but not her spouse.

So tomorrow is it. Then end of my summer. And Nora will go to daycare and Ken will get his quiet house back and all will return to the chaos of normal that is the school year.

I took Nora to daycare to “visit” on Friday and I’m really glad I did. She was a bit shy at first – she clearly remembered where we were. The director just took her from me even though Nora was clingy. She didn’t cry. She sat on the director’s lap and said some unintelligible words and took it all in. After a brief visit to her new room – the “butterflies” – we went to the office to fill out paperwork. Nora left my side willingly to go and play with one of her teachers from last year who was in the office covering bulletin boards. And I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

While that has made my weekend much less stressful than if she had been a screaming mess during the visit, it hasn’t made me stress free. I am not nearly as anxious as last year. I am not shedding tears into my keyboard right now. I enjoyed my day with Nora today (despite her early waking and short nap).

But every now and then I do stop and think. Will she cry in the morning? Will the teachers understand her words? Will she nap?

And the big one – will she eat?. Can I send my own snack even if they give them snack? When will she drink her milk? She grazes all day with me and I help feed her still. She is no pro with a spoon or fork. So my biggest stress is what to send her for lunch. What will she be in the mood for? What can she feed herself?

No one can answer these questions for me right now (unless anyone cares to comment with some brilliant ideas on what toddlers eat for lunch), so I just have to tell myself that we’ll figure it out over the week, over the month and all will be okay.

Nora is a social baby – she likes other kids – as evidenced from our trip to the pool today where she said “hi” to everyone and their parents and shared toys with a 23 month old boy. She’ll be fine at daycare tomorrow. Maybe if I tell myself that enough throughout the day, I’ll be fine too. Maybe.