We went to Easter service last night with the baby. It was the first time we'd tried child care at church. I do believe I was quite brave! When we dropped Baby Kate off, she was the second baby in the baby room with two women there eager to take her. I said goodbye and quickly walked away before either of us could wail. But, I should have expected the baby of a stay-at-home mom to have some trouble with this. About 45 minutes in, her baby number flashed up on the big screen in church beckoning us to come and pick her up. I let Daddy P do it.
He reported that the room was filled (about 15 babies) and the childcare workers (about 4) had their arms full with crying babies. Apparently the whole room was crying, they had just already tried everything with Kate (diaper, bottle, rocking, bouncing) with no luck.
Which brings me to sympathy crying. Now, you know of that vomit trigger: see a vomit make a vomit. I remember one bus trip in Elementary school which knocked us down one by one after that first child fell victim to the windy roads. But sympathy crying? I've noticed that when we are around another baby that begins to cry, Kate cries too. I don't know if babies just has an enormous amount of empathy that we totally lose by 1 year old, or if she just has a soft crying trigger.
She does this, not only with babies mind you, but with dogs. Well, our dog. If Elly barks -- no wait, let me be totally accurate -- if someone makes Elly bark, Kate cries. This was demonstrated when we had some friends over for dinner and one of them, in playing with Elly, made her bark. Kate instantly looked from man to dog to man and began to cry. Elly barking on her own (at the door, at a strange noise) causes Kate to look worried and to carefully watch what is happening, but she rarely cries because of it. It seems it is the concern for the dog that prompts the cry.
So maybe childcare last night was less about being scared of these strange church ladies (which, the news has illustrated lately isn't necessarily a bad thing...) and more about sympathy crying. Kate's amazing empathy?
Hard to tell. Regardless, I know I'm going to find myself struggling with leaving her again, but know it will be good for her. Separation anxiety definitely has its grip on Kate which means crawling can't be too far away really. And with that knowledge, armed with a tube of super glue, I walked around the house carefully gluing all those rubber tips on to the door stoppers so she can't pull 'em off and eat them. The bottom floor is almost babyproofed! Computer, check. Bookshelves, check. Random wires, check. Window cords, check. I have kitchen cabinets to go and one more hutch needs to be wall-anchored. Just watch: we'll move before she crawls because I've started this. Mark my words.
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