Daycare = best decision ever

Just a comment - I think putting Sierra in daycare at ~14 months was one of the BEST decisions we ever made. It's expensive, but definitely worth it. It's been 3 months, but WOW, she's learned so much!

At the time, she was full of energy, ready to soak in everything, needing so much stimulation that staying at home with Grandma could not provide. Since starting daycare, she has rapidly learned SO MUCH. Her interest in reading grew leaps and bounds - one of her favorite pastimes is to sit on your lap with a book and read together. Before daycare, she thought books were good teethers.

Some of her other milestones during this time (since this blog is mainly for grandparents to keep track of her growth) -

Her language skills have blossomed exponentially (even the teachers have commented on it). She was physically solid when she started (a good walker at an early stage), but not so advanced verbally. She tends to be really quiet in new situations and observes a lot. But when comfortable.... She's turns into a babbling machine! (even more so in the past couple of weeks) ... We don't know what she is saying most of the time, but she has mastered the sign language for "more" and says "mo" all the time now. Some other words - nah nah nah (no no no), hi, bye, dada, mama, Coco (accompanied by barking sounds - "woh woh woh!"), ba (for ball), ba (for book), ba (for bottle/sippy cup), bo (for boat), UH OH (big favorite), whoa, wow, bay-bi ba (for "baby bear"), ah duh (all done), makes quacking sounds with her rubber ducky or chicken stuffed animals... and probably a bunch of others that I don't recognize as real words yet or just can't remember right now. She's definitely trying to imitate us a lot more now and has been heard to say "one, two, three" (with attempted hand gestures) at school.

She LOVES to sing, especially songs with hand gestures (i.e. itsy bitsy spider that I feel we sometimes sing to death). She is able to sit down for circle time for up to 30 minutes at a time. When she started daycare, she thought crayons were just another food. Now, she is able to make proper scribbles with crayons, and plays with paint often at school. They recently learned to dip paintbrushes, so she tried dipping while eating a vietnamese spring roll earlier this week. She was successful with the dip, but the face she made when she tasted the sauce? PRICELESS. (too bad we don't have a photo) She didn't like it. At all.

She is getting better with a spoon (holding the right side up), and enjoys spearing food with a fork, laughing uncontrollably at times with her successes or messy failures. She still primarily eats with her hands, and is a bit more picky (because she knows what she wants, and can point now). She recently learned to throw (unfortunately for us - but fortunate for Coco? -, food during dinner is a favorite).

She has gained some social skills, and we hear she is so comfortable with her classmates that she will sometimes sit on them (if they happen to be in the chair she wants to be in). She had one biting incident so far (at 15 months), but who can blame her? Some boy tried to take her toy from her hand. :)

Early on in daycare, she learned that sometimes there is leftover food hanging out under the tables. She was caught moving the chairs around so she can crawl under the table to get the food. The teachers were amazed. Because of her, they are also now much more diligent cleaning up after snack time!

She loves to climb up chairs, sofas, benches, little tables at school, and SLIDES (yes, climbing up them - not the safest of pastimes). She doesn't quite realize the potential consequences/dangers of doing these things yet. She can turn in circles, attempts to run (not there yet), tries to copy people jumping, and does this strange goose-stepping stomp sometimes (we suspect this is her trying to copy older kids skipping?).

We attribute a lot of her growth to daycare, so if it's something you're thinking about and have the funds for, I think it is a worthwhile investment.

P.S. Her immune system has also been challenged significantly. Although, a bit of a pain to deal with (I think she's been sick ~10 times since turning 1 year old), it will definitely pay off.

P.P.S. She has also entered the temper tantrum phase! So beware if you tell her she can't do something or take something she wants away from her!