Daddy Daycare – ISSUE N.06
This week has been a wild ride at the daycare, adaptation will be easy they said - not so much.
Hello there, thanks for coming back.
I was going to continue the story of how we built Sensive. But I have been in daycare adaptation mode throughout the week. We are getting Sky Lou started in this small little daycare a short walk from where we live. So you’ll have to wait for the Sensive Part III story until next time.
Daycare Journals
If you are not interested just skip this part. This week is all about #dadlife
TLDR;
Daycare is a tough place for any mortal being.
It’s probably harder for the parent than for the kid to adjust.
I’ve learned that dirty kids are inevitable.
To be prepared for this week of adaption at the daycare, we watched the Eddie Murphy comedy Daddy Daycare (from 2003) on Netflix last week. I can definitely recommend it as a dad. So much relatable stuff going on. Could also be that seeing that movie planted the seed of actually starting a daycare. But I do think that is a bit farfetched.
I had no real clue what to expect from going to the daycare with Sky Lou. Or how she would react to the entire experience once we were there. So I went in with an open mind.
I had some very loose and vague comments from the educator and owner of the place about how things would go down. Monday started really well, we were supposed to stay for a couple of hours and then leave. Sky Lou is usually very physical and crawls around and wants to be close to other kids but this week has been very different. During the Monday session, she was more reserved and observed what was going on around her. I felt a bit strange about this, I was not thinking this was how it would go down. I had expected her to be very interactive with the other kids like she is at the playground with random strangers. But much to my surprise this was not the case.
We capped it at 2 hours and headed home.
Tuesday was an instant miss, we essentially took 2 steps backward. She would not lose me out of her sight. And was very clingy. So while we made some attempts at me leaving, it would result in a glass-shattering scream, and with the educators trying to calm her, essentially it was back to daddy that sealed the deal. We did tag along to the playground at least, and here we made another attempt at me leaving. Took a walk around the block and grabbed a coffee, only to return to the playground and find out she had passed out in her pram just 10 minutes after I left. So I took her for an extended walk, and that was that for Tuesday. Felt like we somehow were further away from adapting to daycare than when we had started…
Wednesday. Okay, new strategy, we will be in the daycare at the dawn of light. First people in. The leaders of the pack. Instant failure, somehow we managed to sleep in, and what should have been a slow and gentle morning at home before daycare turned into a stressed quick scramble for clothes and a quick breakfast for Sky Lou. I did not have time to eat. We did arrive early but not first, so we did have the benefit of Sky Lou actually seeing the kids arrive and not showing up at a packed daycare with all the impressions and noise that comes with it.
We had more or less the same experience as on Monday at the daycare, then went along to the playground, where I disappeared to the mandatory coffee and breakfast break. I then returned to the playground in disguise and helped the staff push one of the extra strollers back to the daycare (because I had pushed Sky Lou there in our stroller). I then left her at the daycare, and she had lunch and fell asleep for the afternoon nap. Picked her up at 2:30 pm-ish and all in all it was a semi-success.
Thursday, the last day of adaptation before easter. At this point, it felt like we had it figured out, the plan was simple. Go to daycare, leave Sky Lou, stay for 10-15 min and then leave… Well as history has shown us, just days earlier, it would not go down like this. After an impressive effort by one of the educators to calm Sky Lou for well over one hour, she finally gave in and I made my appearance from the shadows of the kitchen. It was daddy daycare time again, and she stopped crying the moment I took her in my arms.
At this point many of you might think, just rip the bandaid and leave her and let her cry it out. To that, I must say that’s not really the point of adaptation. Later when she is used to the place, the people, and the environment, yes we will leave her even if she cries, but right now, she is utterly afraid and uncomfortable, and they don’t yet have a way to calm her down. So we need to keep showing up.
We did the same as Wednesday, but I was around, and we did lunch but skipped the nap because she was already so tired from the early morning and all the screaming that we called it (we were going to see them all in the afternoon again for an Easter egg hunt anyway).
So after a week at the daycare, I have a newfound respect for daycare workers, I’m considering opening my own daycare, and we still have to come back for some more adaptation time. But we will get there, and Sky Lou will prevail.
This week’s tidbits
We need to instantly stop eating fish and stop fishing. Watch Seaspiricy on Netflix now.
This is a hobby I should not add to my list of hobbies. (It involved Bonsais).
Metamuse Podcast episode 27 - Playful software with Rasmus Andersson
This song is strange YT - Arc’teryx
Nvidia finally launched their new RTX 4090 graphics cards.
We got the Lego Smart brick launching as well as the new Space Shuttle Model, ordered one instantly.
Daði Freyrs song 10 years gets a nice music video.
I got access to OpenAI API including GPT-3. (excited).
Any feedback or ideas on how I can make this better is most welcome.
Thank you for reading.
Written by Linus Ekenstam, a troublemaker at sensive.xyz – You can find me on Twitter & Instagram