Monday, September 08, 2008

Schroedinger's Baby

Average Baby started at her new day care two weeks ago, and she seems to love it. As soon as we arrive, she just wants to play and zoom around the room and see what the other kids are doing.

As we reasoned when we were making the decision to move her, the new day care has a number of advantages, but so far the feature we have enjoyed the most is that one of the walls of the room is a one-way mirror so that over lunch, my husband and I can stroll over to the day care and totally spy on the bebe. In the old day care, we had no idea what she did all day, or what sort of temperement she had when we were not around. Obviously at home we don't know what she's like without us, either.

At home, Average Baby is usually very cognizant of our whereabouts, and if it's not sufficiently close to her, she gets irritable.

At day care, she is among the most independent of all the babies & toddlers, and is perfectly happy to amuse herself with this toy or that, or will crawl over to one of the other kids to show them what she is doing, or to take a closer look at what they are doing. When one of the other kids starts to cry, she regards them for a few seconds and then looks around the room for one of the providers to see if there's going to be a resolution.

We could watch this all day long, because it's so fascinating for us to observe her when she doesn't know we're there. I know that last time I said I tend not to think of her as a research project, but . . . maybe I kind of do.