Attaining official toddler status

Last Wednesday we were informed that Keegan has graduated. Yes, Keegan is now officially (at least according to daycare) a toddler. He was slated to start going to Toddler on June 2nd. Of course, they wanted to give him a trial run on Wednesday.

Like normal, daycare did this kind of out of the blue. Also, like normal, they didn't give me any information. I mean important information like where the toddler room was, if he still gets breakfast, will his stuff be moved over, etc.

Him moving to toddler is good. It means that he gets to go and play outside on the toddler equipment instead of languishing in the stupid baby buggy (which he thinks is boring). It also means we pay $10 less a week. Of course there is a catch; we only get the decrease in tuition once all his paper work is done. Like when he started, I now have to refill out all the paperwork on his vaccinations, his background, and his sleeping/eating patterns. They want to know his favorite toys, if he uses silverware, his favorite foods, etc. etc. As if this isn't all annoying enough I need to have his doctor fill out another health update sheet.

So basically this ends up being a lot of work for me. I have to fill out all of this stuff and then go and drop the health info form off at the doctor's office for them to fill out. Daycare gave us a week to get this stuff all filled out and back to them. If we don't get it back to them by the 2nd then they get to move Keegan to toddler without giving us a tuition decrease; I guess it's nice to be them.

Overall though I think the move is a good thing. When I picked up Keegan on Wednesday no less than 5 people stopped me to tell me how much fun Keegan had outside with the other toddlers. They sleep on cots in toddler instead of in cribs. To my surprise Keegan's teacher said he snuggled up on the cot and went right to sleep. He took a nice, long 2 hour nap. This was great to hear!

Now picking him up on Monday was a completely new experience. He spent the whole day in Toddler again. When I got there they told me he was in toddler. I was like, well, where is toddler? They pointed me towards the right room and when I went in it was empty. So I went back up front and was like "umm...it's empty". Oh, they realized he was actually outside. So I went through toddler and outside to the play area. It was a bit confusing because Keegan started the morning in infant, so I didn't know where his jacket, etc. was. Ends up everything was moved over to toddler, or so I thought.

So I walk outside and every single little kid (there were around 30 of them) stops to silently stare at me. It felt really odd. I didn't see Keegan but I saw his teacher and she said he had just gone into a tunnel. So Keegan comes out of the tunnel and sees me. Usually he smiles, runs towards me with arms outstretched, and gives me a big hug. Well, this time he didn't. He ran the opposite direction. When I went over to pick him up he pouted and threw a mini-fit. He was genuinly angry at me for taking him out of the playground.

I talked to the teacher for a second and she wanted to know if he had a blankie to bring in. I said he had one in infant (actually he had three in his infant drawer). She said that he didn't have one in infant and I needed to bring one in. She also said he slept great but didn't eat much of his lunch. Then Keegan and I went inside and out the front. Still not a single smile from the boy.

We stopped by the wind chimes, Keegan wanted nothing to do with them. He stomped over to the car and pouted. The whole car ride home he didn't smile or look at me. Finally I started asking him "what does a cow do?" He finally cracked a grin and said "moooo". Then I asked "what does a sheep do?" He smiled and said "baaa". So at least his anger at me was short-lived!

I am glad that he is having so much fun in Toddler, although I miss the enthusiastic greeting when I go to pick him up!