Daycare and Drama

Anyone interested in a very cute, intelligent, precocious almost 4 year old?  Lots of great qualities.....however, she does have a helluva temper.  What?  No takers??  Why am I not surprised???

We started daycare this week on an abbreviated schedule.  Hooray!!  Monday was our homevisit , which freaked me out like crazy.....I am the teacher who is used to doing the homevisits, not the slightly loopy parent that is on the receiving end, but that is another story entirely.  Anywho, it went great.  I love The Belle's new teacher.  She is my age, has 2 kids of her own that are preschool age, and speaks perfect English.  She is not a native Swede, which also gives me hope.....she moved here from South Africa when she was a kid, so she understands the big transition we are going through.  Tuesday was our first official day....I have to stay with her this week, but The Belle did great and even told me to leave when they went outside to play.  But yesterday, oh yesterday.....great first 2 hours, until I told her to go to the bathroom and wash her hands before she went outside.  Girl had a MELT.DOWN when I told her to go back in and wash her hands.  Um, hello?  What?!?  Yes, you read that correctly.  BECAUSE I ASKED HER TO WASH HER HANDS.  I was sooooo embarrassed......I wanted to snatch her up and spank her......actually no, I really wanted the earth to open and swallow me up.  Her screams were echoing throughout the entire building.  I felt some serious tears coming, but somehow I kept it together....I finally got her to calm down when I got about 1 millimeter from her face and talked to her between clenched teeth.  I threatened that we would leave and never, EVER come back.  I think she believed me (I would have, cause at that point I meant it) because she dried those tears up immediately.  At that point I began to apologize profusely to all the teachers for her tantrum.  They said it was ok, but I can only imagine that we were the talk of the teachers' lunch table after we left.  *sigh*  The Belle had another tantrum when we left because she didn't want to leave, but I am more ok with that.  Moreso because we were outside on the way to the car and not in the middle of the school building.  But it still made me exhausted......

At dinner last night the phone rang and The International answered it.  It was The Belle's teacher.  My stomach dropped like a brick....I knew she had called to tell us not to come back anymore.  BUT, everything is ok.  She actually told The International that everyone thought I handled The Belle very well, and that not to worry, they see behavior like that all the time.  And also to tell us she would be absent today and to bring The Belle later than planned.  Whew....dodged a bullet with that one.

So please send positive thoughts our way in another hour or so.  I have to stay today, and today I will have baby girl with me too.  Is 10:00am too early for an aperitif???