Growing Up...

Frozen pond explorers

I feel like perhaps I am starting to enter a new era with Linden.  We just got word that there is finally (finally) a spot open for him at one of the local daycares. He's been on multiple lists at multiple daycares for almost an entire year… it is not very easy to find care around these parts unless you are at least 2 years 9 months old. My plan had been to start him a couple of days a week in the fall so as to have some designated time in which to finish my PhD thesis, but obviously that was not nearly as easy as I thought it would be.  So, in a couple of weeks, Linden will start going for two full days a week. 

Peeling his own tangerine

I am struggling with this a bit more than I thought I would… the daycare (though I'm sure completely competent) is also very institutional, and is not somewhere I would choose to send either of my kids if given multiple options.  It is also prohibitively expensive. And then there's the fact that you're never quite ready to hand your child over to someone else during the day, even though he is well over 2 at this point.  But I have been paying tuition since the fall and not getting much done, so this will hopefully be great in that respect.  Also, I think it will be wonderful for Linden to get to play with a whole bunch of kids his own age in the course of a week.  Hopefully these goods will outweigh the bads.

Truth be told, Linden is getting older.  He peels his own fruit (see above), helps with dinner prep (see below), talks in almost full sentences (the other day, he said "ummm… yeah. I not done yet.  Need to finish my cracker first").  Maybe I'm struggling with that a bit as well :) 

Fastidiously peeling a carrot

Not much else to report over here - everyone is a little under the weather, and therefore there haven't been all that many adventures or pictures from this past week.  But every year, when I put together calendars, I find my February choices pretty dismal.  So this month I will try very hard to remedy that - I will be very conscious of taking as many great pictures as I can, despite the inevitable dismalness that is February!