KinderCare

Today was Matthew's first day at daycare.  I was hesitant when dropping him off because he cries when I drop him off at the nursery at church but low and behold, the drop off was tearless (for both him and me!) and easy as pie.  When I took him into the classroom and took his coat off, he just ran off to start playing.  It was a huge sigh of relief for me to see how easy it was for him.

fast forward a few hours

I went to check on him during lunch.  When I got there, the KinderCare director told me that Matthew was going through his ups and downs - he would be happy and playing one minute and then sad and crying the next.  But with a little consoling from his teacher, he was okay.  After that conversation, I went to take a peak at him in his classroom.  It was such a saddening sight - he was sitting at the lunch table with the rest of the kids but he wasn't eating his lunch like the rest of the kids.  Instead, he sat there, leaning against the table, hugging his little green blanket just looking around.  I've never seen him sit so still.  I could only see the back of his head so I could only assume that he didn't have smile on his face.  I stood there for 5 to 10 minutes and he just sat there the entire time while the other kids were eating their lunches.  It broke my heart when I saw this...but I couldn't do anything about it because if I went in to give him a kiss and hug, there was no way he'd let me leave him there for another couple of hours.  So I just went back to work.

fast forward a few more hours

I went to pick him up after work.  When I went into his classroom, he was sitting in the carpeted play area with his blanket clutched in his arms.  He was just observing the other kids.  When he saw me, he smiled so that was another sigh of relief because I thought he might start crying or be mad at me for leaving him there all day.  His teacher said he was a lot happier after his [very short] nap.  Hopefully tomorrow will be much better for him.