First Day of School

Mallory's first day of school was today and it was definitely harder on me than it was on her. We dropped her off around 9:30am and stayed for a little while to make sure she - or should I say I - didn't have separation issues. I actually did much better than I thought I was going to do and only teared up a little bit throughout the day. She didn't even seem to care that we were leaving once we put her down on the mat to play with her classmates. Today she had three other kids in her class and two of them were extremely curious in Mallory's presence, especially the little boy. Even Mallory herself appeared to be really inquisitive of the other infants. She's been around my friends' kids but never more than one at a time so I think her interest was much more peaked this time. 

After saying our final goodbyes, Jody and I decided to go out to breakfast; something we haven't done in a very long time. This was the first time that he and I had an entire day to ourselves since before Mallory was born, and we had all these grand ideas of what we could do with our day together. We entertained going to see a movie, going to the raceway, even going to hit golf balls at the range. But what did we end up doing instead? Ran a couple errands, took a cat nap, and just relaxed around the house. I went and got a much needed pedicure that felt awesome while Jody took Leo for a run around the neighborhood. Even though we didn't go and do anything crazy exciting, I think I enjoyed the way that we spent our day together even more just taking it easy. 

Of course I couldn't help but think about Mallory all day long. I wondered what she was doing, how she was feeling, if she was having a good time, was she sad, was she crying too much. You name it, it ran through my mind. I was missing my little shadow like crazy. Around 1:30pm I told Jody that I really wanted to call over there to see how she was doing. I didn't, but I wanted to. I'm not sure why I want to try so hard not to be that overly protective first time dropping their kid off at daycare parent. I'm sure at some point this week when I'm sitting at work with a few minutes to spare I'll pick up the phone and dial in to my daughter's class because I can't help myself. Just goes to show how much I adore this little girl and hate spending even a day away from her.

When we picked her up she was all smiles for us which totally made my heart melt. Her teacher had nothing but positive things to say about Mallory. She was in a good mood the whole time - boy does she have them fooled! It did make me feel better knowing that she wasn't crying and scared the whole time because I'm not sure how I would handle being able to bring her back tomorrow if she did have a bad day. Though Mallory doesn't grasp the concept of time yet, I do feel like she was super excited to see us. She even buried her face into my neck for awhile when I picked her up. I soaked it up big time.

Tomorrow we do it all over again except this time I get her and me ready on my own and I have to do it all within three hours. Let's hope Mallory let's me get a little more sleep tonight than usual so I'm at least half way functional for my first day back at work. Daycare Day #1 was a success, phew!