I dropped my LO off at daycare again today. She goes 5 days a week. Which sometimes seems mad to me that she spends 8/9 hours away from us, whilst we work. Especially after the many years it took to have her, only for her to spend so much time away from us during the week. But, to be honest, what is the choice? We have to work to earn the money to support ourselves. And so, off she goes to daycare.
She goes to two different ones, with different approaches. One a little more feral than the other. But at both she has a lot of little friends she likes to play with.
As I dropped her off this morning, a little later than ideal as we are all struggling with our energy post-christmas / new year and in the darker January mornings, all the kids were sitting at their little tables ready to pour themselves water and help themselves to their daily fruit snack.
I sat her down next to one of her friends, but she didn’t want to say goodbye. She is struggling a little at this daycare at the moment as many of her friends move up into the pre-school class, and she is still with the younger ones, so she’s not having as much fun running riot as she does at the other daycare where everyone is mixed together.
I asked her to show me how she can pour her own water into her glass, and she did it so well. Then the teacher came over to ask her about her Paw Patrol t-shirt and so I could leave. Reluctantly. As I knew she really wanted to be at home.
And it got me thinking initially, wow, I would love to be three. To be looked after, to play with my friends, to not have any cares in the world, to not be worrying about the things I have on my plate.
But then I realised, three isn’t so easy when you are three. You are still learning language, in our LO’s case, two languages. You have to learn everything for the first time. From how to pour into your glass, to how to colour in, how to fold paper (she makes cards for everyone at the moment as its her new thing), to helping cook, to learning to ride a bike and so on. And that is exhausting. Not to mention that you have very little autonomy. You don’t get to decide what you eat, what you do, whether you can watch your favourite programme, when you go to bed, if you can have a snack, you can’t go anywhere or do anything on your own. And how frustrating is that? You know you are not a baby anymore, and yet, you aren’t allowed to just do what you want, and you don’t understand why, because you don’t really understand consequences yet. Apart from the fact that Santa said if you didn’t brush your teeth you might not get presents so you are going to make very sure you do that because you live for presents…
So, oh to be three seems like an amazing dream, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that every lifestage has its challenges, and as you grow into your own autonomy going back to a stage with none would be incredibly hard. So I am going to try and give my LO a bit more understanding and grace when she is struggling to understand why she is being told ‘no’ or ‘not now’ or ‘not that’ for the nth time.