He may be ready, but I'm not.

We start Conrad in daycare tomorrow. I'm not sure why I haven't mentioned it here yet. Probably because we're feeling very conflicted about it. This was the plan all along, but the opening came up several months earlier than we expected it. We have such a wonderful situation with Bonnie taking care of him here, in our own home, but we knew that was going to end at some point. I guess we were both thinking it would end, oh, maybe when he went away to college.

Not only will it be an emotional adjustment, but a logistical one as well. Right now, Jean is downstairs preparing everything he might need for the day tomorrow, and then labeling it. All of it. The sippy cup, for instance, requires three individual pieces of identifying tape. (One cool thing is that they assigned our boy the color black as his personal identifying hue, which means we also got a way cool silver Sharpie. I assume they gave him this color combination because they saw his name and knew he was badass.)

I know he'll be fine there. He's a happy, well-adjusted baby and he responds well to other people and activity and attention, and we're getting him in before he's started showing any signs of separation or stranger anxiety. When we took him to the daycare for orientation, he had a great time. At one point we were all standing in a circle listening to the director, and Conrad started looking around the room at everybody, alternately grunting long, drawn-out "Arrrrrrrrs" and cackling maniacally. The other parents laughed, but I know inside they were thinking, "Please don't let the giant pirate baby eat my child."

We're starting him off slowly and transitioning him to full days over the next two months or so. Does he need that much of an adjustment period? Probably not. Do I? Probably so.