Last week at daycare, another child bite Gunnar. From what the teacher tells me, Gunnar was playing on a riding toy and the other child sort of fell on him and bit him on the chest. The teacher said these things happen. Lots of teething going on, you see...
Hmmm.
Here's the problem(s) I'm having. The chest is a flat surface with little fat, usually. I would think that if a baby was teething, they would want a round, chewy surface to bite down on. Little effort, big pay off. The fact that it's a chest bit, something accomplished with some effort, leads me to believe that teething was not the primary factor.
Gunnar was on a toy. Probably a cool toy. Did the other child want that toy? Did Gunnar take the toy away from another child? I will probably never know since neither child really talks.
How was the the child able to bite Gunnar on the chest without someone intervening? Again, a chest bit requires effort. Effort requires time. If there was a struggle over a toy, no one heard or saw something? The teacher gives me the impression that she did see it. Are there too many kids in the class for the number of teachers? What else is slipping through the cracks?
The bite broke the skin. Again, a chest bite is hard enough, but one that breaks the skin?! And they didn't put bacitracin (Neosporin) on it. Because I didn't fill out a medication form. Really? I think since it's an over the counter thing that its okay to have on hand and apply. Its better to get yelled at by a parent that to have the kid get a serious infection (which also gets you yelled at by the parent but now yo have guilt because yo followed a stupid rule). I blame all the stupid anti-vaxxing parents for this one. They've put our children at risk because now we're afraid of common sense.
I'm not mad at the other child. They are young and these are lessons to learn on both sides. Secretly, I wish Gunnar had pushed the other kid down or swatted him or something. I don't have a problem with kids defending themselves when its necessary (think of that scene in A Christmas Story). But, not going to lie, I'm a little peeved at the other parents and the teachers and the daycare over all.
Parenting is hard. Parenting 45 minutes away from your child is harder.
Cheers.
Update: Facebook "fights" later and lots of opinions and chatter and I'm fine with things. Gunnar is no longer in that room with those teachers (he aged out this week). I'm really happy about this. I think the room he was in has too big of a range of ages in it. They have babies that have just started crawling and Gunnar, who runs around, climbs everything and yells.
So yesterday was pretty much one of the worst days of my life. If not the worst, then it's totally the top three.
Gunnar started daycare again yesterday. It has been four months since he was in daycare in Florida. I cried his first day there. He didn't seem to mind it that much. He was only four months old and still trying to figure things out. I think he liked daycare in Florida. The teachers were all impressed with how he did on his first day. He seemed to adjust quickly and settle into their routine. He was a happy baby and they loved having him in their class.
Fast forward to yesterday. His new daycare is very nice. His room is a good size and the head teacher has a lot of experience. But let's be real. None of that makes me feel good about dropping my baby boy off with strangers. And it didn't sit well with Gunnar either. He started crying when I left him to go fill out some paperwork and he didn't stop. He tried to play while I was there but he cried the whole time. I tried to sneak out but he figured that out almost instantly and started screaming. I heard him out in the hall. I heard him in the entry way. I looked in the window to his room and saw his teacher trying to comfort him. I turned on the car and headed to work. And cried the whole way. My co-workers in Florida told me that it never gets better, you just learn to deal with it more. That seems like a very dysfunctional way of doing something. Why would I want to learn to deal with something that hurts so bad?
Well, you do what you have to for your kids. And while I believe that being a stay-at-home-parent is an endangered profession in need of saving, I do value daycare as well. I living proof of the benefits of it. But that doesn't make it any easier to drive away from my baby when I know he is in pain.
I pray that the next day goes better. Because I'm not strong enough to keep this up...
Cheers
Today marks day three that Gunnar has been in daycare. Monday was a hard day for me. I cried when I went to put him in his car seat. I cried harder when we stood at the office to check in for the first time. I had to hand Gunnar to Kevin because I needed to pull myself together. I didn't want to scare Gunnar and have him think that this was a bad place I was leaving him. One of the mom's that had just dropped her kid off said everything would be ok, he was in a good place. All the people were really nice, I'm sure I'm not the first mom to cry on the first day of daycare. It was just an awful feeling.
I hate that I can't stay home with him longer. Ideally, I would love to get around 7 or 8 months or whenever he starts crawling with him before daycare. But that was not a reality for us. All the moms that get to stay at home with their kids, I hope you are thankful for that opportunity. All the working moms that could stay home if they wanted to, I hope you are thankful for that opportunity too. All the working moms that have to work but want to stay home, I feel your pain. Stay strong. Hopefully, one day I will be able to stay with my kids for a good chunk of their infancy. I believe in daycare. I was a daycare baby. I think it teaches good social skills. And I'm so excited to see all the little art projects they do with the kids.
The women I work with all knew what Monday meant for me. Each one came up to me to ask how I was doing and told me stories of when they put their kids in daycare for the first time. No one told me to gt over it and everyone said that never gets easier, you just learn to deal with it better. It felt like I had joined a club. It was nice that everyone was so understanding, especially my lab mates. We don't really have the luxury of having an "off" day in non-profit research. You have to bring your A+ game everyday. They knew that a lot was on my mind but they still trusted me to get back into things and start doing science again, albeit slowly. Lol. It reminded me why I wanted to be in this kind of research in the first place.
Today when I went to check on Gunnar during my lunch, it was nap time for the older kids. This means it was really quiet. When I opened the door to the infant room, I could hear a baby yelling. Not yelling in a bad way, the kind of way a baby yells when they have figured out the noise is coming from them. We call it "talking" in the Kendi Haus. I thought, "is that Gunnar?" Sure enough, there was my baby boy bouncing in a bouncer with his new friends just "talking" to anybody that would listen. He was totally fine and having a good time. While I was happy to see this, I was also a little sad that he was doing so well without me. I mean, I put everything I had into taking care of him for the last 4 months and it kinda felt like he was already over it. I know that daycare is a new place and there are new friends to make and things to do, but it still hurt my feelings a little bit. I'm so glad that he is happy there, I think I would be devastated if he was miserable and there was nothing I could do about it. He is being a good boy and he is growing up. I just hope he doesn't forget about his Mama who loves him more than he can imagine...
Cheers
