My visit to State College was just long enough to make me
really sentimental. I started the PhD program four years ago with a
bunch of strangers, whom I now count as dear friends. I miss them. I have started to become much better at just being thankful for the
past experiences rather than wishing them back into being. But there are
still times when I wish for some remnant of the past to come back into the present. And the truth is, life would be much simpler if we all just stayed in one place.
It takes a lot of time to
develop a new community and although I have friends here in Denver, Evan and I haven't really reached a sense rootedness.
I got back to Denver on Saturday evening just before Iris went to sleep. She was sort of dazed when I walked in the door. We hugged for a long time and then I took her upstairs to put her to bed. Evan had taken off Monday since we were supposed to be on vacation, so we ended up having a whole weekend together. We took Iris to City Park on Monday for a bike ride and then we went to a Thai restaurant for lunch. By the way, in case you're wondering, most of the high chairs we've used in restaurants are broken, which is a real annoyance when you have an active baby trying to grab your food, not to mention being a safety issue. Iris actually did really well until we were leaving the restaurant and then she cried most of the way home. She was very tired and hungry in spite of eating some of the rice noodle soup I ordered along with the food I had brought for her.
In other news, we started Iris in day care this week.
And then we pulled Iris out of day care.
There were a host of reasons that we made this very difficult decision but the main reason was that the teacher(s) were pretty forceful in putting the kiddos down for nap time. By that I mean that, for the toddlers who had trouble transitioning from lunch to nap, the teacher(s) would pin the children down to their mats for long stretches of time and cover their heads with blankets all while the child is crying and trying to wriggle out of being pinned.
I struggled with how to handle the situation. At first I thought it couldn't actually be as serious as I thought it was. And then I realized that if anyone had ever done anything like that to my daughter, I would want to know right away. So then I wondered if I should try to tell the parents. I called a local non-profit that rates the quality of child care centers and told them what I was seeing. They agreed that the behavior was not acceptable. In the end, I talked to the director of the school and she said she'd address my concerns right away and she said that what I was seeing was not appropriate. But we no longer felt like we could trust that Iris would be well cared for in that room with that particular teacher. So now we either need a new day care or we need to find a nanny. Or I'll just stay at home forever.
At one point I had a realization that this is what we would be doing for the rest of our lives -- dealing with unpleasant situations in order to protect our progeny. You might think that I would have already had this realization. Like say, on any number of times we've been in the emergency room. But for some reason this was a particularly difficult situation, probably because I had developed some rapport with the employees at the day care and my instinct tends to be one of not wanting to rock the boat. I guess it's some stage of growing up when you realize that the only thing that really matters is that you make sure your child is safe. And if that requires boat-rocking, then so be it.
The proposal defense went well, by the way. I'm now ABD, which means "All But Dissertation." Now I just have to write the darn thing.
Oh, and if you're with me in thinking that Evan should write more on the blog, post something in the comments. In addition to being funny and witty, his recent post quelled my nerves while I was gone. He claims not to have time to blog but I think that he might respond to external pressure.
I got back to Denver on Saturday evening just before Iris went to sleep. She was sort of dazed when I walked in the door. We hugged for a long time and then I took her upstairs to put her to bed. Evan had taken off Monday since we were supposed to be on vacation, so we ended up having a whole weekend together. We took Iris to City Park on Monday for a bike ride and then we went to a Thai restaurant for lunch. By the way, in case you're wondering, most of the high chairs we've used in restaurants are broken, which is a real annoyance when you have an active baby trying to grab your food, not to mention being a safety issue. Iris actually did really well until we were leaving the restaurant and then she cried most of the way home. She was very tired and hungry in spite of eating some of the rice noodle soup I ordered along with the food I had brought for her.
In other news, we started Iris in day care this week.
And then we pulled Iris out of day care.
There were a host of reasons that we made this very difficult decision but the main reason was that the teacher(s) were pretty forceful in putting the kiddos down for nap time. By that I mean that, for the toddlers who had trouble transitioning from lunch to nap, the teacher(s) would pin the children down to their mats for long stretches of time and cover their heads with blankets all while the child is crying and trying to wriggle out of being pinned.
I struggled with how to handle the situation. At first I thought it couldn't actually be as serious as I thought it was. And then I realized that if anyone had ever done anything like that to my daughter, I would want to know right away. So then I wondered if I should try to tell the parents. I called a local non-profit that rates the quality of child care centers and told them what I was seeing. They agreed that the behavior was not acceptable. In the end, I talked to the director of the school and she said she'd address my concerns right away and she said that what I was seeing was not appropriate. But we no longer felt like we could trust that Iris would be well cared for in that room with that particular teacher. So now we either need a new day care or we need to find a nanny. Or I'll just stay at home forever.
At one point I had a realization that this is what we would be doing for the rest of our lives -- dealing with unpleasant situations in order to protect our progeny. You might think that I would have already had this realization. Like say, on any number of times we've been in the emergency room. But for some reason this was a particularly difficult situation, probably because I had developed some rapport with the employees at the day care and my instinct tends to be one of not wanting to rock the boat. I guess it's some stage of growing up when you realize that the only thing that really matters is that you make sure your child is safe. And if that requires boat-rocking, then so be it.
The proposal defense went well, by the way. I'm now ABD, which means "All But Dissertation." Now I just have to write the darn thing.
Oh, and if you're with me in thinking that Evan should write more on the blog, post something in the comments. In addition to being funny and witty, his recent post quelled my nerves while I was gone. He claims not to have time to blog but I think that he might respond to external pressure.
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