I am looking for a preschool for Chula. I remembered going through the same routine not very long ago, when I was looking for a day care for Chula. I was looking at my personal logs/emails on how Chula settled in day care and it was a trip down memory lane!

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Chula started a day care on Vijayadasami(Oct 2nd 2006). She is 21 months. It is a Spanish day care, home based, walking distance from home. There are 14 children including Chula. But all the 14 are not there at the same time. The good thing is that the children are in different age groups. So Chula will learn to cope up with children of all ages. Also the day care is busy all the time, so she is engaged in one way or another.

After one month of meticulous searching, I finally learnt a lesson – there will never be a place that I am completely satisfied with, no one can take care of my baby like I do. So the one with least cons will be the best place. Hubby and I took her on the first day. We had a big speech on the lines of ‘Amma and appa love you. We are not abandaning you, we will come back to get you….blah,blah,blah’. But the minute she saw the broom in the backyard, she wiggled away from us, didn’t even bother to give us a second look, she started raking leaves with the broom. Few minutes later she looked in our general direction, we got ready to deliver our speech. But she was looking past us at a ball behind us. She picked up the ball and ran away. I waited in my car, outside the day care for about 30 min and pushed off after confirming that she was alright. We never had a chance to give our speech. Just tore my heart to see that she didn’t need us any more.I went to pick her up after an hour. I could hear her screaming “amma, amma” at the top of her voice. It was lunch time and she didn’t want to eat from any one but me and hence the screaming. As soon as lunch time started she kept pulling her day care provider(M) and dragged her to the door, pointed to the door and kept repeating ‘amma’ itseems. Also when ever M tried giving her snack, she pushed it away and said ‘amma’ itseems! Yes, my baby still needs me. Yippee, yipee yay, yay! Wait a minute, what if she doesn’t eat at all?!!! I have to worry about something or I can’t sleep.

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Two weeks since Chula started day care, she is still getting used to the day care. The first two days she was quite enthused because she was in denial that we have left her some where. Then she realized that it is going to be a regular affair, there is a lot of screaming and crying. She is getting nightmares; she is getting get up screaming in the middle of her sleep, “amma, vannach, school all done, amma vannach, school bye bye”(Amma has come, bye bye to school). She is in day care only for three hours and she cries non-stop for the whole time! She pulls the day care provider to the door and says ‘amma, amma’ itseems.

She does not sit down anywhere in the day care. By sitting down she is acknowledging that she belongs there for half a day, so is up on her feet all 3 hrs! In fact her place for all the three hours is next to the door, against the wall. She has her lunch bag in one hand and her blanket on the other hand, she never takes her jacket off. When M tries to take her bag or her jacket off, she says, “No, no, amma vannach, school bye bye, me bye bye”(No amma is going to come and I am ready to go home, so don’t take my stuff away.). Can you believe it?

Today M said that, she disrupted kids who were sleeping. M is very nice, patient and gentle, but also concerned that Chula is not happy. Her exact words are, “Well, may be she is not happy. It tears my heart to see that she is crying so much and she is not eating anything. May be it is a little too soon for her. Let us give it one more week and take it from there”. I got a feeling that Chula is very close to getting kicked out of day care.

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Now, after three weeks she does not cry all the time, only when we drop her off. When I go to pick her up she cries a fake cry, her way of letting me know that she is not cool with us leaving her at some place! Finally after 3 weeks she sat down yesterday it seems. Big break through. M and self almost hugged each other and danced around in joy. Couple of days before that, she allowed her bag to be taken away from her. So looks like we have broken her will. But she still keeps her jacket on, blanket close to her, refuses to eat (not even a sip water) or go to sleep. She has cereal in the morning and by the time I bring her home, she is so tired that she dozes off and has her next round of food at 6.00PM. Hopefully she will start eating and sleeping there.

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4 weeks from the start date, Chula loves her day care. She keeps saying school, school. She is puzzled why we don’t take her there on Sat and Sun. She eats there and sleeps for couple of hours. She loves the bean burrito her day care provider makes. She asks for ‘peans’ all the time.

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Its been 10 months now. She calls M ‘mommy’ when I am not around. I am a little green about that, but…….what can I do? Also she speaks fluent Spanish and English. Tamil has gone down the drain though 🙁

About M, though I thought I settled, I couldn’t have picked a better place or person to take care of Chula. M has a masters in Math from Mexico. She worked as a high school math teacher. After coming to US, she raised three of her kids. Now she is majoring in Child development and Child Psychology, hoping to teach Early Childhood Eucation classes in a college/unniversity some time in the future.

It is now time to pluck this little flower and replant it in a new environment. Sad, but has to be done. Replanting depends on how potty trainning goes. So any tips on PT?!