Jazz has her first day today at a child care centre around the corner from home. She's still going to FDC Mon-Thurs but after I received a call on Monday from my best friend's husband asking me if it's ok for my friend not to look after Jazz on Friday as he's planning to take her out in the evening and she'll be too exhausted to go after a day of looking after Jazz. It made me think that I need reliability with care because I can't just drop everything and take a day off work when it's inconvienient for my friend to have her. Don't get me wrong, she's my best friend and I completely trust her with Jazz. But she also has some pain management issues due to a botched hospital procedure a few years ago and a day of running around after Jazz takes her 2-3 days to fully recover from.

I haven't told my friend that I've put Jazz into a centre, but I did tell her that I was thinking about it. I also didn't tell her that its because I need to make sure I have reliability. I told her that I'm concerned about her (my friend's) wellbeing and that I want her to have the opportunity to look after herself better and do the things she needs to do to help her manage her pain.

So, when I dropped Jazz off this morning I put her down and she immediately latched onto my legs and started crying. I stayed with her for a while until she settled a bit. Found some toys for her to play with and when she was starting to get occupied with the toy and one if the carers came with her breakfast I snuck out and signed her in and just stood for a minute or two in the foyer. Then I poked my head around the corner to see her sitting in the highchair eating breakfast happily. The carer who was feeding her smiled and gave me a nod to let me know she was ok. So I left.

I rang about an hour ago to see how she's going and they said she's having a great time. Ate all her breakfast, ate some fruit for morning tea and some birthday cake as it's one of the kid's birthdays today. And she'd just started doing some painting. I told them I would ring again in the afternoon to find out how she slept and stuff.

At FDC now when I arrive to pick her up she gets sad because she doesn't want to leave, I guess that's a good thing. I think it'll be the same this afternoon when I pick her up.
Only this week at FDC she's gone from running up to me and giving me a big hug as soon as I walk in the door to seeing me, running away when I try to pick her up and saying "no" when I say it's time to go home.

She's also fallen in love with Thomas the Tank and will point and say "Toddis" (for Thomas) and "Eddie" (for Edward).

We have some kid free time this weekend. Jazz is sleeping over at my parent's house on Saturday night, I'll drop her off in the mid/late afternoon and then we'll pick her up late in the afternoon on Sunday. We're off to the footy on Sunday afternoon which will be fun. I hope it doesn't rain. I should check the forecast.