So I have almost survived the first week back at work and away from my baby. The week has continued to go relatively smoothly, and Caleb appears to be settling in well at nursery. The only glitch appears to be if one of the workers is not purposefully distracting Caleb as I attempt to leave. If he's left to play on his own, he inevitably looks around for me, catches a glimpse of me nearing the door (or worse, walking out), and he gets upset. Therefore, I typically wait until one of the workers has engaged him in some sort of play and I slip away. So far, this seems to be working.
I have always believed that nursery would be good for Caleb because he is such a social child and loves being around other kids. However, it has not come without its downfalls as well. Aside from the obvious, there are two main aspects of nursery of which I am already not a huge fan:
1) Caleb has started sucking his thumb...a lot. He has never been a thumb sucker (though I can't say that his thumb has never wandered into his mouth). However, in this past week, Caleb has apparently picked up thumbsucking from his nursery - I'm guessing that this is by watching other children. I'm hoping that it is more appealing currently because he's teething but that it will be a passing trend. I can take his pacifier away when he's older. I can't take away his thumb.
2) Caleb no longer smells like himself. This may sound weird, and I can't tell you what he used to smell like. All I know is that every day when I pick him up he smells like perfume or some sort of girly body lotion. So now my little boy smells like the workers in the nursery. And I hate it! It's not that I think they smell bad, it's just not what Caleb is supposed to smell like. It's very sad and the first thing I want to do when I get him home every day is wash him off!
Granted, neither of these things are huge issues and I'm sure I'll come to accept them. Things could be much worse during this transition time, but for the time being I'm just glad that it's almost the weekend!
Labels: Caleb, Nursery