Margo à la Maude

Our daycare provider recently fell and landed on the bathroom floor pretty hard. She was sore, but okay. That is, until the re-arranged bones finally settled in. After taking Margo in on Monday, she called to say that she's out for at least the remainder of the week. I was with Margo on Tuesday, but our provider was able to arrange back-up with another daycare in her neighbourhood for the rest of the week.

The transition shouldn't be too hard on Margo, right? We talked about it, about how, tomorrow, we were going to Adela's house, not Carmen's. How she would be able to play with new toys and new kids. To everything, Margo emphatically said "yaaaass."

No problem. Right? She wanted to try this out.

This is where I fill you in the other part where Margo has a tendency to emphatically say yaaass to anything. Do you like the colour pink? Yaaass. Do you think that shards of glass and rusted nails are good treats to give out at Hallowe'en? Yaaass. Does the U.S. government have a believable exit strategy for Iraq?

The reality sank in this morning when we missed the turn-off to go to her old daycare. She had a look on her face like she had finally pieced it all together. She got very quiet.

When we arrived at Adela's house and I turned the engine off, she started quietly chanting a mantra of "no 'dela's house no 'dela's house no 'dela's house."

On the walkway, she took my hand, held Minou up to her face, and planted herself on the spot.

When I picked her up, she buried her face in my shoulder, and when I set her down inside and asked her to take her shoes off, she folded in half and buried her face between her feet.

Did my heart break with the thought that she might be thinking that I was punishing her? Yaaass.

I stayed for about 10 minutes, we played with the toys, she got a little more comfortable, but she's never been so quiet.

It was a long day at work. I left a few minutes early and couldn't wait to go see her. When the door opened, she was sitting with two of the boys at the bottom of the stairs, and jumped up and threw her arms up for me to pick her up. She nuzzled her head into my neck while the caregiver and I talked about the day.

On the way home, she was chatty, but when I would slip in a question about daycare, she got quiet, or gave an unenthusiastic yaaass. Even at bedtime, after a couple of hours of playing and laughing and giggling, I asked if she was ready to go back tomorrow, and she immediately stopped smiling and didn't say anything.


When a child cries, you can chalk it up to uncontrollable emotions or irrational fears. But when my child gets quiet, it's indescribably sad.

Adela is on vacation next week, so if Carmen is still out of commission, Donna will stay home. That leaves two more days at Adela's. I think that it's good that Margo gets used to different people, and I think that Adela's good and very experienced. And I'm trying to save my leave from work for when the new baby comes.

It doesn't make it any easier. We're not punishing you, Margo, we're just trying to get through.

- Michel

Labels: event

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 7:35 p.m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.