School

Ever since the infamous biting incident this summer, we've been trying to get Carter enrolled at Child Development Center near our house. They don't take children under 2 years old so we had to wait until November to even get on the real waitlist (before that, we were waitlisted to be on the waitlist). But, after some persistent calling and begging and chatting, they moved us up based on our "urgent" need and Carter has now been accepted! He'll be going all day and be in a class with 19 other children 2-3 years old. I'm so excited for him...he's going to love it. And the great part for us is that the hours are longer and we're paying the same as were were for part-time care with his current provider. Plus, they feed him lunch trucked in from the local elementary school so I know he's getting a variety of foods rather than just the chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and Chef Boyardee that I'm fairly confident he gets every day now.

We really think he's ready for school. He can recognize all the letters of the alphabet and knows what sound the majority of them make. His favorite car game is to have us do "letters" where we ask him what certain letters say and he tells us the sound. He's pretty darn good at it for being barely two!

He's going to miss his friends, I'm sure, but I'm hopeful he'll make new ones quickly. I'm anxious about the transition but maybe he'll surprise us. We're going to take him a few times beforehand to play for a few hours and then I'm taking off work on his first day so I can be there for a while in the morning if he needs me, and come early if he needs that as well. It's going to be quite a change for him.