June 5, 2000 - Monday
We started Harry in Daycare today, though will not be full time, at least not yet. His mother and I will probably continue to spend parts of our work days keeping an eye on him ourselves for the next couple of months, but after the summer some additional help seems inevitable. We got word that a highly recommended provider had an opening and decided the time was right to start integrating Harry into society a little bit before he starts his separation anxiety phase. We'll be bringing Harry to Daycare just a couple of mornings each week, and he's actually met two of the other three children before, so this seems like a fairly low-stress start. Yet, we think it will be healthy nonetheless.

For the record, the significance of Harry's first day of daycare didn't really strike me, though his mother concedes she thought about it. I did muse about with distant thoughts that Harry might have one of his rare meltdowns and cause a bad impression and discomfort at the center, but he did not. I actually reflected more about his first haircut. Somehow the daycare, while important for Harry's social development, is more about the needs of his parents rather than him growing up. The haircut was more about him being older than the day before.

I've not fed Harry the solid foods in a few days and noted a significant difference in his approach when I did it this evening. He was paying a lot more attention to everything around him and less attention the task at hand. It wasn't hard to get him to eat. He seems to know his job well now, chomping or even dive bombing at the spoon when he sees it coming. The trick is either getting his attention or getting the spoon inside his now fast turning head and hands. When we first started with the solid foods last month, I was surprised that it wasn't messier and thought as he figured it out it'd just get easier. But, while I, or we, managed not to spill anything today, the once mysterious possibility that food might end up in his hair, on the walls, in my hair, or elsewhere is now quite clear in my mind and frightfully easy to imagine.


Comments, opinions?