Using the Gym’s Daycare Center: Our First Trip

Today is Monday.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, my daughters will go to the gym daycare center for the first time.

While I’ve been a member of this gym for over a year, I have not yet taken my girls. The reason is really one: My littlest is a bit frightened of strangers.

Yet over the past few months she has opened up. She seems to be sowing her wild oats lately, and I think that now, if any, is a great time to put her with someone else for a while.

She’s never even had a babysitter, much less gone to a new place for someone to care for her. To say I am nervous is an understatement.

I have a million things running through my mind. But over all of those is this simple fact: I’m killing myself getting up at 5 AM, sometimes earlier, 6 days a week to work out. I need to schedule things differently so that I still have energy at the end of the day when my husband feels like hanging out and talking.

And mostly I need her to get used to having other people watch over her so I can have some time away, and so that my husband and I can go out for grown up dates from time to time. We desperately need it, as do all couples with kids. You know, getting dressed up, eating a meal without rushing through it because one or both of the two children is climbing the back of the booth in order to attract the attention of everyone around us. Really talking about things instead of stopping every few seconds to say, “Please let daddy finish his sentence. Please let mommy talk.”

Momma’s burned out; so daycare gym, here we come!

I am not taking her in there blindly. Today I stopped by the gym and let the kids run in for a few minutes. The youngest went without turning back. She was so excited about going to play that she didn’t even look for me.

Tomorrow, I don’t know that it will be the same. I will be leaving her there. I’m not sure how she will react.

I was supposed to keep my pager, the one that the daycare will give me, close to me at all times for the first two days. The daycare lady asked that I not wear earplugs just in case. This wasn’t what I had hoped to hear; I want to swim tomorrow morning, swim and bike, but now I am not so sure. I may bike first. That way, if there is a problem, such as she won’t stop crying at the beginning, I will hear myself being paged and can skip the swim.

I think the price is good. I can pay ten bucks for the entire month, and if I keep up with the schedule I would like to keep up with, I will be going three days a week for about an hour or a bit more at a time. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be tri training. On Friday they offer an abs and weight class I’ve been dying to try.

So, this is post one. Tomorrow, once I have gone and actually left here there alone, without me (ah, the guilt is already getting to me!) I will post again and let you know how it has gone.

Fingers crossed!