Milestone Reached - My Daughter's Last Day of Daycare

My daughter reaches yet another milestone today.  Today is her last day of daycare.  While part of me rejoices in the fact that I will only have one child remaining in daycare, the other part of me cries knowing that my little girl is growing up.  It’s a bittersweet time indeed.

For the past year, my daughter has only been in daycare two days a week, and has spent the remaining three work days in the care of my mother-in-law.  This pattern of care was established to accommodate my daughter’s pre-school schedule, and we maintained it this summer until this week. 

Our family is going on vacation next week, since our daycare will be closed for their summer holiday, so we’ll all be going to camp for the week.  During the two weeks following our vacation, my daughter will go to my in-laws during the day, and the next week kindergarten starts.  It’s hard to believe that she’ll be going to kindergarten in less than a month, it seems like just yesterday we were driving home from the hospital with our newborn!

She’s already saddened at the prospect of no longer seeing her daycare friends, and nervous about the upcoming changes that will occur when she starts school.  It’s been incredibly helpful, transitionally, that she attended pre-school in the same school that she’ll be going to kindergarten in.  She already knows most of her kindergarten class, since they all went to pre-school together.  I know that she will thrive once she gets back into the routine of school, but until then we’re all a little nervous about the transition.

For my husband and I, it will mean another shuffling of our work schedules to accommodate the school day, and the juggling of children to two different places.  It also means that we’ll no longer be paying for daycare for my daughter, and THAT is huge for us!!  My son’s schedule will be flexed with a later drop off time at daycare, so that my husband can get my daughter to school, and an earlier pick up time so that I can be home when our daughter gets off the school bus.  It will take time for all of us to adjust to this new schedule, though I’m sure we’ll adapt to the scheduling change much faster than I will adapt to having my baby start kindergarten!