Day Care Drop Off Blues

Benjamin was clingy today as I dropped him off at his day care. He likes to bring a toy or two for the ride over but today he didn't want to give these up. I didn't want him losing them at day care so I ended up distracting him and stashing those toys away in the car. When he realized what happened, he started to cry a little so I immediately talked to him about the school busses in the parking lot. This stopped the crying as he loves seeing those busses (See The Wheels On The Bus post I made here a couple weeks ago) and we went over there for a bit.

Then we went inside and stopped off at a bench at the front desk area and we looked at a drawing of a school bus, people and a model of the school and he said his ABC's while I took his jacket off.

We went into his classroom and then he didn't want me to leave. He kept saying "Uppy Daddy!", which means he wants me to pick him up and then he kept hugging me. That was sweet but I was running late. He still wouldn't let me go. Finally the teacher was able to get him to go to the window and across the street there were some Verizon workers doing some construction so that kept him occupied as he watched. I left the room, signed him in at the front desk log and then checked on him one last time. He was being held by his teacher and pointing outside to the workers. He was fine.

It was hard letting him go. I guess since we were all bonding together during our vacation last week both of us didn't want to say goodbye. I thought leaving the house while he was still asleep at 5:30 AM each day to go to my old job was rough but this is tougher. There are some days when I get emotional when I drop him off but that's who I am. I love my little guy very much and occasionally it's just hard to say goodbye.

I told this to Weena in an e-mail when I got to work and she replied as follows:

It’s tough especially we just got back from vacation and he is so used to having us around. He will eventually adjust to school again. His way of taking toys from home is part of his security and he feels better if he has something that he knows he owns and so he clings to them. And so when you take them away, he feels lost or alone.

It’s the stage where they get very clingy, but as time goes forward he’ll feel more confident and more independent.