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The other day, fortunately AFTER her pictures were taken, Kaylee was bitten on the face by another child at daycare. Yes, on the face. More specifically, the other child bit her on the fleshiest part of the cheek. I think s/he might be a budding cannibal.

That’s backstory.

Ok, so this morning as I was walking out of daycare, a little girl of about 5 years old was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for her mother to get her sister out of the car. She stopped me for a little conversation.

LITTLE GIRL: Who’s mommy are you?

ME: I’m Kaylee’s mommy. She’s in the toddler room.

LITTLE GIRL: You’re Hailey’s mommy?

ME: I’m KAYlee’s mommy.

LITTLE GIRL: Kaylee?

ME: Yes.

LITTLE GIRL: Oh. … She was being mean to me yesterday.

I briefly debated my response. I could have called her a dirty liar, because she’s much older than Kaylee and spends her days in a different room, so they probably haven’t even met. I also could have said, “You probably deserved it. ARE YOU THE ONE THAT BIT HER ON THE FACE????”

Because, you know, what better way to start a Friday morning than by making a little girl cry?

Instead, I went with, “Oh really? I’m sorry. Bye!”

I’m such a saint.

“I don’t know where the blood is coming from.”

That is not what most parents want to hear when they walk into daycare to find the teacher holding their screaming child.

That’s the scene (and greeting) that awaited me when I picked up Kaylee yesterday. Her teacher was holding a blood-spotted paper towel up to Kaylee’s face, while Kaylee wailed and cried.

This is a good way to freak out a parent.

I managed to stay calm, though, and Kaylee calmed down once I took her from her teacher and tried to understand what happened. They think Kaylee tripped and hit her face on the table, probably where an upper tooth is coming in, causing the gums at the tooth site to bleed.

Poor kid. I hope she manages to make it to adulthood without any obvious scars.

Yesterday, Kaylee’s daycare teacher told me that Kaylee had a Great Day.  (With capital letters and everything.)  She said they’d done “butterfly art,” which involved sticking Fruit Loops to pieces of paper, on which the teachers had put little dabs of glue.  Her teacher said that Kaylee was the only kid who understood right away that she was supposed to put a Fruit Loop on each little glue blob.

So clearly, my child is a genius.

(Just, you know, ignore all those times she’s tried to eat sand and rocks.)

Kaylee had her 15-month well-child visit this morning, and for the first time the doctor seemed a little concerned about her size. She’s always been a tiny little thing, but her percentiles are slipping lower as her growth has stalled.  (All of this news was translated by my brain as this: “You’re doing it wrong. Your child is unhealthy, and it’s your fault.”  But for once, let’s set my neuroticism aside, because I’m actually going somewhere else with this post.)

The doctor felt that Kaylee is doing well in every other way, so he declined to order a bunch of tests to figure out why she’s not growing on schedule.  Instead, he believes she needs more calories.  He wants us to stop giving her water and juice, and instead give her whole milk to drink all the time.  (Up until today, she’s had whole milk about half the time, with water or juice the rest of the time.)  Occasionally, we can mix milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast to up the caloric content.

So, those instructions are easy enough, and we will implement the new plan at home immediately.  I expected to be able to do the same at daycare without much fuss.

Hey, have I mentioned the pointless rules and regulations that accompany the daycare experience?  HAVE I?  Maybe you won’t be surprised, then, to learn that a “simple request” is never simple when it comes to daycare.

With her lunch and snacks every day, Kaylee gets either water or milk.  I asked her teacher to replace the water with milk, just so she can have those extra calories.  The teacher seemed to think that would be all right, but just wanted to check with the director to be sure.

Figuring this surely wouldn’t be a problem, I stopped and talked to the director on my way out.  Imagine my surprise when her answer was, “We need a doctor’s note.”

…

…

…

Ok,  I would understand completely if I were asking them to give her Diet Pepsi or vicodin.  But milk?  For a baby?

Apparently, the daycare participates in a food program and they’re not allowed to deviate from it AT ALL.  Replace a cup of water with a cup of milk?  Blasphemy!

So.  I had to call the doctor’s office.  For a note.  So my baby. Can have MILK.

I expected some sort of bewildered guffaw when I asked for the note, but the receptionist took down my request without comment or snicker.  Then I remembered that this doctor’s office has been around for a while, and they are probably even more acquainted with this kind of ridiculousness than I am.

Lucky them.

One of the daycare rules I always found amusing is that, when one kid hurts another kid, the daycare is not allowed to name names.  Thus, the first time another kid chomped down on Kaylee’s head — for some reason, they never bite an arm or a hand, only the head or the back — the daycare teacher phrased it like this, “Kaylee got bitten today, but I can’t tell you who did it.”

I just sort of chuckled, because the bite was minor and I thought it was kind of silly to be so secretive about it.

On Monday, I was washing my hands in the bathroom when Rob and Kaylee got home at the end of the day.  As Kaylee was coming around the corner to see me, I heard Rob say, “Kaylee had an accident at daycare today.”  I looked down to see a horrifying, giant, swollen, purple bruise protruding from the middle of her forehead.  When Rob told me that she’d fallen and hit her head on a table at daycare, I immediately said, “Did some kid push you down?  I’ll kill him.”

Ah, I think I’ve discovered the reason for the secrecy.

In fact, Kaylee did not get pushed over at daycare.  She simply tripped over her own feet, to end up with a bruise that perfectly matched the purple shirt she was wearing.

As you can see here, she also loves wearing lots of purple necklaces (plus one green) that Gram made, and they go nicely with her new bruise.

So I’m thinking that maybe Kaylee isn’t clumsy so much as she is really committed to accessorizing.

I had my first-ever parent-teacher conference today, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  Would she get a report card?  Would there be letter grades?  SAT scores?  What is there to say about a 1-year-old?

Turns out, there was a progress report, letting me know that Kaylee has mastered certain skills like seating herself in a chair, building a tower of three to four cubes (I didn’t know she could do that), and climbing stairs on her hands and knees.  There was also a list of “emerging skills” such as naming three objects, pointing to four body parts, and “increased dependence on mother during walking stage.”  Oh wait, I think we’ve already arrived at that last one, seeing as how she won’t let me set her down to take off my shoes in the evening.

And then the teacher told me this story, when I mentioned that Kaylee has also already mastered the “increased resistance to bedtime” skill:  When it’s time for a nap and Kaylee’s lying on her mat, she will sometimes lift her head up, look around and then start to get up.  Her teacher then tells her to lie down, and she does, but then she starts peeking again.

My reaction to this story: SHE CAN GET KAYLEE TO LIE DOWN???  Are there chains involved?  Sleeping pills?  Some sort of sorcery?

I must learn this magic.

Although I failed in my attempt to come up with an excuse to post photos of Kaylee playing in the water, I do have something to talk about today.

Today is Kaylee’s first day at a new daycare, and I had to drop her off for the first time this morning.  I was prepared for tears and heart-wrenching sobs, and a desperate attempt to cling to the familiar.  It turned out that none of those things came from Kaylee, while all of them came from me.

When we arrived this morning, the toddler room at the new daycare was in chaos — the kind of chaos you expect when you put 10 toddlers in the same room.  Kaylee watched the action but wasn’t exactly angling to be put on the floor.

When the time came to hand her over to her new teacher, I was expecting the screaming, shirt-clinging scene that I’d come to expect at the old daycare.  But today, she just went quietly, only looking mildly concerned.

I, however, was a mess.  I’ve been singing the praises of the new daycare, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about how Kaylee’s going to adjust to her new surroundings.  And the thought of her spending several days in misery just … well, it makes me cry a little bit.

So I did my best not to tear up while I was still inside the daycare, and then I went ahead and cried once I got back to my car.  I spent most of the morning convinced that Kaylee was miserable and sobbing hysterically, and that I’m the worst mom ever for inflicting this change on her.

Then I called the daycare a couple of hours ago to check on her.

You guessed it: She’s fine.  Perfectly, wonderfully fine. She even took a longer nap than she usually took at the old daycare.

So I figure I need to come away from this with a lesson.  I guess it’s that Kaylee’s a tough kid who can handle a lot more than I give her credit for.

And also that I’m probably going to need therapy when she goes away to college.

Rob and I went to a “parent orientation” at her new daycare last night. (She starts there in about a week and a half.) Every once in a while, I learn something new about that place that makes me wonder if it’s really worth the trouble. Last night, it was that their medication policy is even more strict than her current daycare’s policy. Argh.

But then, THEN, I learned something that makes ME want to start attending the new daycare.

They have Sprinkler Wednesdays during the summer.

So, every Wednesday, we’ll be packing an extra change of clothes and some sandals so Kaylee can play in a sprinkler that they’ll be setting up in the yard. Can this place get any better? I think not.

It looks like the few inconvenient changes that will occur with the switch to the new daycare center will affect me and Rob, while all of the happy, this-is-awesome changes will benefit Kaylee.

I think I can handle that.

Side note: I think I would like The Gazette to implement Sprinkler Wednesdays. And also nap time.

In the interest of making sure that I never stop feeling guilty about leaving her at daycare, today Kaylee decided to throw a fit when I left her behind.

When the teacher tried to take her from me, Kaylee clung to my shirt like a screaming little monkey. Her head turned red, and she managed to arrange that cute little baby face into the most accusatory expression possible.

I know she probably calmed down as soon as I left, but I still feel as guilty as if I’d tossed her out the back door to be raised by wolves.

When I got to work this morning, I checked my e-mail and had one from BabyCenter telling me about my 1-year-old’s development. The first two sentences: “If your child gets upset when you leave her now, she’s right on schedule. Twelve to 18 months is prime time for separation anxiety…”

No freakin’ kidding.

Rob and I are very seriously considering moving Kaylee to another daycare, for a number of reasons. We don’t thinks she’s in danger or anything, but we just have some concerns. And if I’ve learned anything while writing for Parent over the years, it’s that the number one rule in choosing child care is to trust your gut.

We toured a different place this morning, and it’s more conveniently located and seems to have nicer facilities. We were already interested, and then the director told us about the Spanish teacher they have on staff. And the music teacher. And they have a computer lab. And a kid was sitting nearby playing a keyboard.

I probably would have immediately asked for a Sharpie and a sticker so I could go ahead and put Kaylee’s name on a cubby, but the center director was going on about how we need to weigh the decision carefully, etc., etc. I had a feeling that shouting “I AM READY TO ENTRUST YOU WITH MY FIRST BORN!” might have made me seem a little impulsive.

So we’re waiting. I’m looking over the pamphlet she gave me, and sometime next week I’ll take Kaylee by to see what she thinks of the place and the people. But there’s a pretty good chance we’re going to choose that daycare.

That means I’m in for an awkward conversation in the near future. Because, see, while I do have some concerns about the old daycare, I also really like a lot of the people there. They’re friendly and caring and they LOVE my daughter. I don’t want to hurt their feelings.

I’m trying to think of ways to break it to them gently:

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

“I’ve found someone else, and I just feel like it’s time to move on. Let’s stay friends, though, ok?”

“We’re just not in the same place anymore, you know? And also, I SAW you looking at that girl in the supermarket yesterday.”

Maybe not that last one.