"No Friends Here"

Children like routine, repetition, consistency. Children do not like change.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. How many times I've told it to myself.

It's that mantra that has provided the only negative part to this whole new move. What will this massive change--the new house, the new routines, the new daycare--mean to Poohbutt? It's funny. I mean, the girl's two. It's not like she's going to remember any of this. I realize that, always have, and yet, it hasn't stopped the guilt from creeping in.

Well this morning, it washed over me like a great flood. I was dropping her off at her new daycare. Yall know I didn't handle the first daycare situation all that well. Well, Pooh had her issues as well. In fact, she pretty much kept to herself for the first five months she was there. The teachers would constantly tell me how well-behaved and how quiet Pooh was there. Eventually, they confessed that she hardly ever spoke to any of the other children or the teachers and really just spent the days playing by herself.

Something magical happened when she turned two. She became an extrovert and became quite popular with the other kids. Every time she entered the school, everybody would be like, "Good morning, Poohbutt." And when she left, it was "Good night, Poohbutt."

She'd enthusiastically wave and say goodbye, and then proceed to babble for the next half hour as I drove us home.

You can see why I was apprehensive in changing daycares. But I did. We didn't have much of a choice.

It's been a little over a week now. As you may have predicted, the teachers are telling me how well-behaved and quiet my girl is. So, I know what that means. They're also saying how well-adjusted she's been.

Well, maybe at school. But, at home, she's going through some changes: mean-mugging and throwing all kinds of fits. But that's to be expected. Her world has changed quite a bit these last 8 days. But these drastic differences between her reported conduct at school and her definite outbursts at home make you wonder what's going on in that little mind of hers and what's going on with her at the new day care.

I pulled up to the daycare, threw the gearshift into neutral and applied the parking brake. I turned, and chirped, "Here we are, Pooh, at your new school."

She had this vacant look on her face and whined ...

"No friends here, Daddy."

God. I thought I was gonna cry right then and there.