Sigh of Relief

First off, thank you thank you thank you to those of you who left comments about home daycares! You really helped to put my mind at ease as we left LL at his new daytime digs last week.

We went ahead with a trial run at the small home daycare that looked so promising, and so far, it is working out wonderfully. Better than I could have ever hoped for, in fact. So good that I need a blog nickname for LL's new daytime caretaker. I'm going to be racist and call her Natasha, because she is so stereotypically Russian that I just can't help myself. She was a Russian ballet dancer, before she had kids and moved to the US and became a preschool teacher. She keeps making random comments like, "You breast feed and use cloth diapers? How unusual! I thought most Americans like to take the easy way out!" and "I'm actually Ukrainian, but you Americans don't know the difference, so I say that I'm Russian." and "I'm glad that LL isn't bundled up too much. Americans dress their children too warmly. We Russians know that the cold makes children stronger." This last one is particularly funny to me, since I grew up in Wisconsin but now live someplace where the coldest it gets is usually in the 50s, so any mention of "cold" around here makes me giggle a little. And when I picked up LL one day last week, one of the toddlers explained to me that Natasha made them borscht for lunch, but LL didn't get any because babies don't eat borscht. Natasha felt the need to explain to me what borscht is, so that I wouldn't be concerned that she was feeding the children something too weird. Everything about this makes me smile, especially since I myself make an awesome cabbage borscht (my great-grandmother's recipe -- she was Ukrainian, too). So, yeah, on the blog, I'm going to call her Natasha.

Anyway, LL is having a fantabulous time at Natasha's. Whenever I picked him up from Baby Factory, he was sitting alone somewhere, and then he was despondent and lethargic for the rest of the day. In contrast, when I pick him up from Natasha's, he's happy and smiley and giggly. He's napping well there, he's eating well, and he spends time playing outside. Natasha gives me a full report not just of how many diapers she changed, but also details like what toys he enjoyed playing with, and how the other children interacted with him. It's awesome.

He is also clearly loving being around the toddlers, and they seem to have adopted him as the coolest baby doll ever, so everyone is getting along. And LL is so enamored of the place that he has been on his very best behavior there as well. In reference to my previous post, his adorable behavior has even made Natasha comment to me that she's having so much fun with him that she mentioned to her husband that maybe they should have a third child.

When LL was at Baby Factory, I got no work done because I was constantly worrying about him. After just a week of leaving him at Natasha's, I find myself already more at ease. So, with the daycare situation hopefully resolved, I can focus on other problems. Like how in the world it will be possible for me to pump enough milk while I'm at work to keep up with my incredible growing baby....