Follow the Leader

My daughter recently started a new daycare, so we're still in the "getting to know you" phase with the providers and kids there. It's a tense time figuring out if she's happy there or not. At 7 ½ months old, she can't tell me what's going on. All I can go on is what the provider tells me and if D is crying when I drop her off or pick her up. Thankfully, we haven't seen a tear yet. When my husband dropped her off for her first day, she immediately started playing with the blocks on the floor. So we were off to a good start. At D's daycare in the Valley, there were three other kids who were pretty young. Including D, all the girls were within five months of each other. Only one was walking (but new to it), D and the baby one month older than her were crawling (but new to it) and the youngest baby could just hold up her head (but new to it). You can imagine what that everyday scene was like. I'm sure more napping and eating was going on than playing. D has definitely required more stimulation as she's gotten older, so I was excited about this new daycare closer to home, where all five kids there are 2-year-olds. I thought, hey, D can learn a lot from these older kids. Maybe she'd walk, talk and, total dream, get potty trained in record time! Simple assumption: the older the kids baby D hung with, the smarter she would be. By D's third day at her new daytime hangout, I found out just how advanced my daughter had become after spending time with those rambunctious 2-year-olds. When I went to pick D up after work, the sweet lady who runs the daycare - let's call her "Kay" - answered the door and I asked her immediately, "How did she do?" Kay smiled and opened the door wider, revealing my little D in the middle of the room, on all fours crawling around like a happy busybody. And guess what her elders were doing? They were all crawling around the room with her. Kay started laughing and said, "They've been crawling all day because of D." When I had dropped her off that morning, they were all walking. Ha. Shall I take this as a sign that my little dragon is on her way to fulfilling her destiny as a leader, or maybe even toddlers long for their youth at times? I like the idea of both. Nothing soothes like the sounds of a sweet lullaby. Try one of these releases to give your little leaders the rest they need to conquer the world another day.