Brycen started Harvest Christian Daycare on Tuesday, September 3rd. We made the decision to send him to this facility because of many positive reasons: its Christian environment, location, convenient hours (6:30am-6pm), and the fact that Brycen can stay at Harvest Christian up until the day he starts at College Community Schools. They have a preschool, before and after school program, and even bus students to the College Community Schools every morning/afternoon.
The environment is quite the change for Brycen because he has been so blessed to have Jean's attention in such a small group setting with only two other girls. He has quite a few kids who are in his class of 2 year olds. His teachers are Miss Joyce, Miss Kim, and the third often rotates between Mr. Christian and Miss Mary.
Since we learned that Brycen would be leaving Jean's house, the other two girls we were staring "school" so naturally that is what we were calling Brycen's new daycare. (It's stuck ever since.) Brycen had visited his school once but not during the daytime where it was full of children in his class and had not had the opportunity to meet his teachers yet.
The first day: Brycen had not quite grasped the new concept that he was going to school and not to Jean's house, so when we loaded up to leave that Tuesday morning (much earlier than normal due to the longer commute) he was a little shaken. It was all I could do to tell him that if he didn't cry he could have some mangoes that Grandpa Fara had given him and I had cleverly placed in the car for bribery. He ate his mangoes when we got close to school and we got ready to walk in.
Once we arrived at his classroom, he (and I) were completely overwhelmed! In the mornings, the class of 2 year old and three year old children are all in the same room during 'drop off' time. There were about 20 little kids in his classroom playing with toys, singing, screaming, running around, etc. I am sure you can imagine a chaotic classroom of wee little ones.
Brycen had his hat on (of course) and he grasped me with all he had and started crying. He wanted to go with me and he didn't want me to leave him there, etc. He kept asking why I had to go and at the very end I told him that he would be okay and he will have a good day. He looked at me and said are you sure? It was hard to keep the tears back!
After about three or four minutes of multiple hugs, squeezes and kisses I attempted to leave the room. He ran after me saying, "One more hug, Mommy!" What helped is that his teacher, Miss Joyce, noticed it was going to be a rough transition for him and started to read a very familiar book "One Monkey too many" to the class and he joined in.
When I came to pick him up he was very happy to see me and said he had a good day. His teachers said he calmed down after about five minutes and was very shy throughout the day. I was amazed at how he was able to tell me all about his day and he had already picked up many of the other kids' names in his class so quickly.
The drop-off times did not get easier as the week went on, in fact the process to leave his classroom started to be drawn out with him crying and his need for just "one more hug." But each day he was always happy, smiling and seemed to have a good day. He was doing well at nap time. He sleeps on a mat with his same blanket that he had always had from Jean's house. The center turns down the lights and plays soft music during nap time but it's not expected to be completely quiet during this time.
Brycen was eating well too, naturally. Brycen and I have always had breakfast together... since he was about 10 months old and started eating eggs with me. At Jean's she would also feed the kids in the morning and he has forever been used to eating two breakfasts. This did not change at HC, he would be fed breakfast in the morning, a mid-morning snack, lunch, and a snack after nap time. He rarely has a report that he ate "most" of his food, it's nearly always checked in the box that states "ate all."
On Friday morning of the first week, Brycen woke in the early morning hours crying. He asked over and over if it was a school day and I did my best to avoid answering the question and try to get him to go back to sleep, but he was persistent. I told him that yes, it was a school day but it was still night time and we needed to go back to sleep.
He insisted that I stay with him and not leave him in his room. I caved in and grabbed a blanket to curl up on the floor next to his bed. A few minutes later, he would check on me in a panic asking "will you pick me up early?" I had no idea where he thought of that, but I promised him that I would that day. He didn't go back to sleep, but kept checking on me every other minute at the verge of crying with a little hyperventilation and asking if I would pick him up early. Luckily, I knew that it was a strong possibility that I could sneak out a few minutes early that day and even though Brycen cannot tell time, he would love to know that I kept my promise.
His drop-offs for the next week were all the same, very dramatic and even the car ride to school was torture for him. To make the car ride a little easier, every morning we would pick one of Grandma Blanchard's apples in a baggie and he would eat that on the way in the car. We broke our rule of not eating food in the car, but under the circumstances it was alright.
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