Big Changes - Going To Day Care

As you know, we started day care with little man last week. The week was VERY difficult and I hated having to spend the day away from him after 8 weeks of being with him {almost} 24/7. As much as it stunk, I have to say that it did get easier as the week went on. Yes, it's true, that on Tuesday and Wednesday I was a bawling mess leaving Primrose and the entire way to work...and I hastily tried to come up with reasons for my red-rimmed eyes other than the fact that I'm a big crying girl. But on Thursday morning after I laid Cruzer on the floor mat and he gave me a big gummy smile, I actually started to feel better about leaving him for a few hours each day.

It also doesn't hurt that the teachers at Primrose are excellent - the primaries in the room are Ms Bev and Ms Ida and they seem to treat the kids as they would their own grandchildren. Each day we get a report card so to speak on what they worked on with Cruzer, any games they played {So Big & Tickle Tickle are his favs}, it outlines his eating/diaper/napping schedule from the day, you name it. Most days they do arts & crafts with our little guy and send home his excellent artwork - it's so fun to go through! We've received a couple "Happy Grams" which are notes they send about something Cruz does well - I love how Miss Bev explained how she feels positive reinforcement is so important for kids and if she has to discipline a child {she doesn't do this in the infant room}, she makes sure she follows up with a couple words of praise. I think that is a great way to teach children.

Air Travel

Happy Gram "Cruz enjoyed painting clouds for art.
He loved the feel of the paint on his hands. Great job, Cruz!"

Cloud Play

Cloud Painting - used his fingers!

Another awesome thing about Primrose is that the owner is one of Omaha's most well known pediatricians, Dr. Laura. On any given day, she may be in and out of the infant rooms looking in on the kiddos to make sure they are developing appropriately and do exercises with them - she was actually the one who stopped Nick as he was picking up Cruz and told him she was worried about his neck and thought it was Torticollis {read about it here and here}. After our pediatrician appointment, we both dropped Cruz off and she was there and talked with us for about 20 minutes about Torticollis, his development and showed us some exercises to help him when he's on tummy time. It's truly amazing to have access to Dr. Laura if we should have any questions as well as just having her check in on Cruz and the other babies during the week.

Outside of the care he receives from Primrose, the fact that we've been able to get him on a schedule since starting is the best. He is so exhausted when he comes home from day care from all of the play time and fun activities that he wants to crash when he gets home. Last week was the first night he actually slept 5 1/2 hours in a row - ahhhh so amazing! I love that we get to spend a couple of great awake hours playing with him when we get him home, then we usually give him a bath {every other night} and by that time he's hungry and then we put him to bed.

We are so happy with Primrose and it makes having to leave him somewhere for precious hours of the day that much easier.



Practicing his special exercises at home... and exhausted from day care