Somehow, it’s closing in on six months since I “went back” to work.  More importantly, that means The Pumpkin’s been going to daycare for almost half a year, since she turned two.  Though the very idea of leaving her with someone other than her mother or me for 10 hours a day took some getting used to, and though those first couple months were fraught with worry, I can now definitely say that we made a good decision, and that she loves it there.

 

After an abortive try-out at a pre-school-ish commercial daycare center, we lucked into finding a licensed, experienced in-home daycare provider a block from our house.  Grandma Vicki and her husband, Grandpa George are just as advertised, actual grandparents who have been taking care of kids in a variety of settings for years.  They have between 2 and 10 kids in the house at a time, depending on the day and time of day, and The Pumpkin just fits right in.

 

Because of la dra.’s changing work schedule, The Pumpkin isn’t technically full-time—she goes three days a week one week, and four days the next.  But the wonderful thing to see is that [most of the time] she’s actually happy to be going back.  The first two months were a little rough, probably more on us than on her.  Drop-offs always ended with me handing a bawling toddlergirl to Grandpa George, with me assuring her that “daddy always comes back” and trying to leave the house while she reaching desperately for me from his arms.  Ugh.  But a phone call later that morning would always reassure me that she’d only cried for a short, ever-decreasing, while.  Pick-ups for those first two months would invariably involve her running to me to be picked up, seeming to be on the verge of tears—though of course she had been playing contentedly moments before.

 

And then, all of a sudden, it all stopped.  I could barely get a wave goodbye at drop-off—the Higglytown Heroes are on at that time, dontcha know.  At pick-up, she was often too busy playing to be bothered.  One of the things I worried about most, naps, became routine—she curls up on the living room couch at about the same time each day and sleeps for at least an hour, usually.  Where she’s the bossy leader with her bestest friends, our friends’ children, here, with a smattering of younger babies and a few older kids who’ve been there a while, including the owners’ own grandchildren, she’s content to just be one of the kids, with no behavior problems I might have worried about in the beginning.

 

During the day, they play inside and out (weather permitting), they color, they paint, they play with toys and playdoh, they sing and dance....  And oh yeah—they watch t.v.  I get her home:  “Daddy, I watch Teletubbies [pronounced ‘tubby-tubbies’] at Miss Vicki’s house.”  “Uh, yeah, sweetie, you’re not watching that here.”  “Daddy, I like Barney.”  “Sorry, no dice.”  “We watch the Wiggles today.”  “Yeah, not even close.”  Sigh.  At least I control the remote at home.

 

Now, as the weather turns warm (soon to be scorching as hell here in Bakersfield), I go home from work, grab Waldo, the iPod, and the jogging stroller, and walk over to pick her up.  All the kids love seeing Waldo, love trying to figure out where the music’s coming from.  Sometimes, The Pumpkin, busy playing with a sand table or something, smiles and laughs excitedly, or maybe even runs to greet me.  But the tension and the worry of those first couple months are long gone.  At home, she talks about “my friends” at “Miss Vicki’s house” by name, telling us what they all did that day, that they played outside, that she took a nap, that they watched t.v., that she ate some cashews (for some reason, the kids’ favorite snack).  

 

And usually (not always, but usually), in the morning, as we pull out of the driveway, waving at Mama’s car in front of us, there are no tears or fighting, just happiness at being able to play all day with her friends.  

 

And that makes the short ride to work, post-drop-off, so much easier.