Oh, Transitions, Why Do You Taunt Me So

Remember when I mentioned that there were other changes coming, besides my not applying to an education grad program for the coming year? The other change begins tomorrow afternoon, around four. As of end of day tomorrow, Alyce will no longer be attending daycare/preschool. She will, instead, be supervising things at the house with me, and some mornings, Matt.

We both feel a bit rotten about the whole thing. Alyce l.o.v.e.s her school. She started there a few months after we arrived in Delaware, when she was thirteen months. She'd just started walking and was the tiniest little fairy of a girl. We had enrolled her somewhere else a few weeks before but pulled her out once I saw that the teachers enjoyed yelling at babies. Who enjoys yelling at babies? They do, it turns out. But it was all to the good, because we ended up finding a small children's center, filled with the warmest of people. Alyce was instantly smitten with her teachers and she never looked back.

Working hard on her Valentine's cards for her friends.

What Alyce did not enjoy, was not having 24 access to milk. My milk, that is. While other kids were showing off their collection of bottles, little Alyce was crossing her arms and stubbornly waiting for my boobs to show up. Every day for months Alyce would not let a sip of liquid pass her lips until four in the afternoon, when I would walk through the door and she would yelp and latch on before I could even sit down. But like everything else, habits changed and she was soon drinking milk from a cup, just as tomorrow she will start driving and applying to art school.* Why do they always grow?

Now she is potty-trained (thanks mostly to her very patient teachers), talks a ten miles a minute, lovingly bosses her friends around, and strolls though the center as though she owns the place. In many ways we have her amazing teachers to thank for her confidence and general know-it-all-ness. (Or is that last one from me? Never mind.) We are grateful for the kind women who welcomed Alyce every day and respected the fact that Alyce was going to sing all the time, all day long, no matter if it was quiet time or circle time. They let Alyce be Alyce, and for that we say thank you.

Our house if full of change right now and while we are in this transition between old jobs and new, it is best for our family that Alyce stays home with us. As much as we adore her school, it isn't free, and since I can be home most of the time, we've decided to try something new. Three mornings a week Matt will stay home with the girls while I work and take my American literature class; the rest of the time it will be all girls, all of the time, at our house. This will be a big transition for all of us, but ultimately a good one. There are moments I'm a bit suspicious that my patience can stretch enough to include a three year old jumping bean in my every day routine, but then I get over myself. And Shira? She's losing her mind, excited.

Shira helped, as only Shira can.