Daycare Day One

Today was Sophie and Michael's first real day at their child care center.  Here's the email their caregivers sent half-way through the day:

Good afternoon Infant families!

We’re having a wonderful day learning about veggies, fruits, and ways to stay healthy. To begin our day, we all got together for a healthy breakfast which included Cheesy eggs! Cottage cheese was mixed in with our eggs to make them fluffy; they looked amazing! We also enjoyed whole wheat toast, organic pears, and a glass of milk.

In our primary groups we continued to have a blast with our favorite fruits, veggies, and teachers! Ms. Amy’s group pointed to a carrot. Ms. Kim’s group rolled a cantaloupe, and Ms. Carrie’s group explored with grapes in a bag!

Then we got ready for a story! Eating The Alphabet by Lois Elhert was the perfect way to learn more about fruits and veggies. This appetizing alphabet book shows fruits and vegetables so juicy and alive, we wished they could jump off the page and into our mouths. We sure love fruits and veggies even more after this wonderful book.

Everyone loves to listen to their teachers sing, especially us! We enjoyed listening to the song “The Healthy Train” it is sung to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus.” Here are the lyrics so we can enjoy your voices too:

The Healthy Train needs

Food to go, food to go, food to go,

The Healthy Train needs food to go

All through the day!

(Now add a food and sing the next verse)

The Healthy Train needs low fat milk,

Low fat milk, low fat milk,

The Healthy Train needs low fat milk

All through the day!

Add each of the following to the foods to the song and sing the last verse.

Fruit to go, fruit to go, fruit to go

Vegetables, vegetables, vegetables

Cereal, cereal, cereal

Lots of bread, lots of bread, lots of bread

Beans beans beans, beans beans beans, beans beans beans

Water to drink, water to drink, water to drink.

Then we pushed our sleeves up for art! Apple stamping was a great time, our teachers cut the apples in half, and we used our hands to move the apple all around on our paper.

Our little bellies were pretty hungry, so we got ready to have BBQ Chicken sandwiches for lunch! Homemade BBQ sauce and diced chicken were served on a whole wheat bun, along with organic apples, carrots, and milk. Snack this afternoon is sure to be a hit! We will enjoy animal crackers and applesauce! While we enjoy the applesauce, we plan to explore with it too! This will be a great sensory activity!

Enjoy the rest of your day!

They included these photos of Sophie and Michael as well on their first stroller ride around the center:

The center recently switched to a fully organic menu (they provide breakfast, lunch, and two snacks).  Once Sophie and Michael are onto table food, there's better stuff in store for them than we'll probably be giving them at home!  I watched the little infants finger paint some pink piggies when we did a pre-visit, so I'm sure Sophie and Michael participated in everything else in the day's activities.

It's certainly been challenging to leave the babies these last two days (yesterday with my mom) as I get ready for the school year.  Mike and I trust their caregivers completely and know that their safety and care is the top priority, so the struggle is just about missing them and hoping they're happy.  It helps tremendously that everyone seems to understand how tough this is for Mike, the babies, and me and is very patient with us as we adjust. 

I was told that Sophie was fussy for her first nap today and Michael had some trouble drinking from his bottle.  Their caregivers think she was overtired and that he was just distracted--sounds about right, and they did great and had fun otherwise.  I picked them up about fifteen minutes earlier than I will during the year and enjoyed feeding, playing, cuddling, and just generally caring for them in the hours remaining at home.  If we're protective of this time each day, there will be more than a good chunk of time to spend together.  Since quantity is limited now, we just really have to focus on the quality of the time we share.