Putting Ethan In Day Care

Finally, after months of back and forth, I finally decided that it's time. There are just so many reasons to give day care a try. As the days go by, these reasons are looking more certain to outweight the reasons not to put Ethan in day care. First of all, I have tried to ignore the fact that Ethan's day time diet is beyond miserable. Congee, Congee and more congee, with bread sometimes. This is probably one of the same problem I have experienced with my MIL - indirect does not work for her but direct would yield confrontation and bad feelings. I left food in the refrigerator - buns, dumplings, frozen soy beans, fruits, cheerios, animal crackers - all of which she refused to feed Ethan. I turned to the nannies. The nannies did not want to contradict the MIL. I then noticed MIL started bringing food like sponge cakes and rice noodles with beef inside. So fine, I left it at that but continued to leave the same type of food in the refrigerator, in the hopes that she would either get bored with bringing the food or the cost would stop her at some point. Noop, she did not stop but very often she would bring a whole cart of congee for the day and Ethan would have that for breakfast, lunch and late afternoon snack. Granted, there were times when I consumed the food over the weekend but failed to recharge the refrigerator for a day or two. I heard no complaint and so that was how it went because the food would be untouched anyway. In the past month, I noticed that he would have congee at about 5:00 or 5:30 pm because he refused to eat dinner with us, the meal that would give him the most nutrition because I often have fish, a vegetable and a pork or chicken dish, plus a healthy pot of soup. Now, Ethan is really a stick. Everybody knows he lost weight. Yes, Ethan is an active kid but the time he is hungry he gets rice in water with a little bit of pork, which is the type of congee his grandmother makes. Where does he get any nutrients necessary for his growing body?

Don't get me wrong, my MIL is truly a nice and kind hearted woman who would sacrifice herself for her children at a heartbeat. However, when it comes to food, she herself only eats white rice and congee and may be some dried fish once in a while. When I asked why, she said she just doesn't like to eat other food. How can I expect one who doesn't love food to think about cooking a nutritious meal for someone else?

Food is one major reason I think putting Ethan in daycare is better. At Red Apple, food is served according to the standard of the Department of Education. Nothing is more important than a healthy body.

As for a sound mind, that's the torment. Ethan is spoiled. He manuvers those he loves with crying. Nobody likes a crying kid and all instinct tell us to do everything to stop a crying kid from suffering. Well, even though I have had two years of experience with discerning what is a real cry from a fake one, there are times when I really wonder if Ethan is really suffering when he cries. Pain somewhere? May be some sort of discomfort? More and more, I am concluding that he is just trying to get immediate attention from an adult. So the fact is clear. Ethan needs to leave the "all" loving home environment and get into a more social environment where he is not the center of all existence. At the same time, the fact that he still attempts to bite when he gets frustrated gets me worried. Will the teachers get upset at his crying episodes so bad that they say bad things to him in his face or even put him at a corner all day? Will he be emotionally damaged? Will he learn to conform to group behavior too much that he loses individuality? Ethan is a happy kid with a beautiful and innocent laugh when he is happy. I will never want to see that disappear. Then again, with biting, there is always the potential of being sued. Who wants their kid bitten? As the mother of a biter, I must honestly say that I see no other option but to put him in school because Ethan needs to be away from all the culprit- perhaps me included - who somehow let him express his frustrations this way. Then there were mothers who told me that biting and hiting is more normal than I think. Perhaps. Aside from the behavior issue that I want Ethan to change, I think he will also learn things from being in school that he will not learn at home.

So the decision has been made. Nonetheless, there is still a part of me that is not feeling easy. I guess all change is difficult. I can only hope for the best.

JW