Macie Goes to School

In order to "lock in" our spot at Parkwood Baptist Church Day Care for Macie, we had to start paying on Monday. We had asked to get in for December, but Miss Gail couldn't guarantee that we'd get a spot unless we snagged the one that became available for November. To ease our minds of the stress of uncertainty, we did. So, during November, I'm going to take Macie in to school a couple of days a week, for a few hours each time, to ease BOTH of us into the transition to school (for her) and back to work (for me).

Yesterday was Election Day, so Dale and I took both of the girls to school at 8:30a so that we could go vote. Anticipating lines (since the lines for "early voting" were ridiculously long), we didn't want to have Macie with us. As luck would have it, of course, when we arrived at our designated polling location, we walked right up to the table, got our ballots, and were in and out within 10 minutes. Note to self - don't worry so much about voting early in the future. Let everyone else in the state do that, and then have the polls to yourself on Election Day!

After a quick trip to the EWAC (the building next to the Smith Center where my new office is), I came home briefly and then headed to pick up Macie. She was at school for a grand total of 3 hours. When I arrived, she had just fallen asleep. The sweet ladies in the nursery (Miss Linda and Miss Joan) went on and on about how beautiful she is (As I've said before, I know that people say this even when they don't mean it - but I also think they really meant it!) and how sweet she was for them (aside from the fact that she "baptized" Miss Joan when she burped her over the shoulder - can't say I didn't warn her about Macie's propensity to spit when burping!).

I got Mac into her car seat as gently as possible, and she stayed asleep. Apparently she was very tired, since her first nap at school was a whopping 25 minutes. Ivie was the same way. It's hard to get used to napping in a room with 9 other babies when your naps are generally in your crib with your sound machine being the only noise you hear!

So I figured Mac would be a bit tired the rest of the day. Boy, was I right! She slept in her car seat until I woke her up at 1:00p for her bottle (it'd been 3 hours since her last one). After chugging down the 4 ounces, it was all I could do to keep her awake for 10 minutes. Then she was back to sleep, once again requiring me to wake her up to eat again at 4p.

Then, though, she'd had enough sleep. Stayed awake as we drove to school to pick up Ivie and headed to Chik-fil-A for Kid's Night (though we drove through, because we saw the "Moo Cow" through the window and Ivie wanted nothing to do with him), and was fairly calm while the rest of us ate when we got home. But, by 6:00p, she was fit to be tied.

Quick break here to discuss this phrase. I looked it up, and found that the origin of "fit to be tied" was from the mid 19th century and means "so hysterically furious that they need to be tied down". Like with a straitjacket. Thus, the perfect phrase to describe Macie last night.

She settled down briefly when I relented and gave her 2 ounces of a bottle (I was trying to get her to hold off eating until the bedtime nursing session). But apparently that wasn't enough, and she started back up again. Since it was now 10 minutes 'til 7p, we just listened to her cry for a while before heading upstairs for bed. It's funny how you'll let your second child cry and not worry too much about it. Ivie would have had another bottle in her mouth so fast that her head would have spun!

I was eager to see how this exhaustion would translate into sleep overnight. She didn't let me down. Slept 7.5 hours, and then 4 hours, resulting in me waking up at 6:30a for the day, after only getting up once at 2:30a. Not too bad, Mac - I'll take it!

So that is the story of Macie's first day at school. She'll get more practice on Friday, as I have a meeting at work to attend. Here's hoping for a longer nap that morning!