Over the summer, Alec attended a day care near our home for a half day, one day a week (mostly Mondays). This was a great way to familiarize him with a day-care routine (specifically that your parents are coming back for you) and he met some really nice teachers and kids. As a warm-up, he and I visited the centre together several times and I was always struck by how happy the children were and how advanced their social skills were. I would have never believed that two 16-month olds could make friends with each other. The first few drop-offs were easy and I felt such relief. The photos shown here were taken during that phase - when he was happy to hang around the front of the building "after-school", even requesting to stop there to play with his cars. Saying goodbye to us at drop-off time did became harder however (probably through a combination of seeing other childrens' reactions to the drop-offs and the novelty wearing off a bit) and, during this stage, he wanted to get away from the property asap (perhaps before anyone changed their minds about him leaving). I don't know if he'll get a chance to spend any time there again but, if not, we will have fond memories of becoming acquained with juice, his fave teacher Miss Brenda, a particular fire truck toy that he ran for when the toy cabinets were opened up, and painting (one day when I picked him up he exclaimed "Miss Brenda gave me paints Mommy").
