Playing catch

Grammy Diane sent us a plush, jingly baseball that Connor used to play with when he was a baby. We discovered that Mitchell thinks playing catch with it is HILARIOUS! I tried to capture some of his laughs on camera. We thought it might have been a one time deal, but Jacob and I have "played catch" with him multiple times now and he continues to be very amused by it.

Daycare update - Not to my surprise, the first few days were a little rough....for ME! The 1st day, we only left him there for a few hours. On the 2nd day, when we arrived they were busy feeding breakfast to another child, so they sat him down on the playmat and handed him a toy....without even really saying hello to him or acting excited to see him. I know my expectations are unrealistic, and I realize that not EVERYONE is going to be as anxious and excited to see Mitchell in the morning as I am....but I was still disappointed. When I picked him up that afternoon, they reported that he seemed to be struggling with the transition a bit. She said he "needed a lot of individualized attention" that day....and I thought, good for you Mitchell. You DESERVE individualized attention. Of course, I overreacted and called Jacob to tell him that we were going to need to start a search for an in-home nanny that would give our little boy all of the individualized attention that he needs and wants. We decided to give daycare a fair shot first, so we're giving it a month. If we are still unsure about things on July 10th (yes, exactly a month), we're going to look into other options. (which likely wouldn't include a nanny anyway - we can't afford that!) Of course, the money was the least of my worries at the time. :)

When I dropped Mitchell off yesterday morning, the girl who made the "individualized attention" comment wasn't there, so rather than just handing him over, I sat and played with him and the other children and the two teachers for about a half an hour. I got to know the teachers a bit better. One of them hadn't been there the day before, so I told her how Mitchell had been struggling to transition and she reassured me that every child goes through that and that if he's eating and sleeping okay (which he is) then he's actually transitioning better than most children. I felt much better about leaving him yesterday and when I went to pick him up yesterday afternoon they were outside on the playground and he was laughing and smiling the ladies...maybe I only needed a week rather than a month?!? :)

The "individualized" girl will be back today - so we'll see how it goes.