Baby school

Eliot has finally climbed to the top of one of the several daycare waitlists she has been on since conception. Since we don't actually want daycare, but we like the school for the preschool and pre-K years, and are feeling a bit shellshocked by our own and others' difficulties in getting into any schools of any kind in Seattle, we figure we'd better get her in there, for a couple of days a week. Eliot is very excited about going to "baby school". As we discussed it at length this morning, she thought it through and realized that I would not be staying there with her. But, she said, "I don't want to cry at baby school", so we talked about some of the fun things there that are going to make her feel better, like the baby buggy, making friends, the playground, learning new songs, lunch, and having a teacher.

I was quite taken aback at the way she imagined herself through the whole thing, from situation to problem to response to solution.

She has a powerful tell-tale marker for thoughts that cause her anxiety: she puts her thumb in her mouth and holds her neck with the other hand. She has used this to self-soothe since she was a little baby, and it is often more effective than any soothing we can do. She has quite a callous on her thumb; she definitely turns her negative feelings inward and generally prefers to deal with them by herself.