Settling down

Touchwood, S seems to be settling down slowly in school. First two days she cried non stop for 45 mins, the next day she cried for half an hour and then was quiet, then on the last day of the first week she cried for twenty minutes and then the teacher took her on her lap and she was okay for the rest of the time (never mind that she sat on the teachers lap throughout). Today morning I was tense again, after the weekend I thought she would be very unsettled in school. She cried as soon as I left her at the gate, but then settled down quite ok (we could not hear any crying for sometime). The center in charge came out after about 45 mins and said that S had settled down and was actually moving around looking at the toys. Then the wailing started and I could hear S cry- it seems she wanted to touch the music system and they would not let her and this led to a new burst of tears. But I think she settled down ok after that because when she came out (after a long 11/ hours) she was not crying and seemed ok.
Am keeping fingers crossed that she settles down this week in school (and the crying stops). I feel really guilty for sending her at such an early age, and was quite upset after hearing some other mothers comment that she is crying because she is so young- not because I take what they say to heart- I know every mom has different views on bringing up children , and unfortunately nobody keeps their comments and thoughts to themselves, but passes on their words of wisdom to others and pass judgement on others who act/think differently from them- anyway I am digressing, why I was upset was that I had exactly the same thought- S is too young to go to school and by forcing her to go I am making her sad. But some of the elder kids also were crying, there is another boy in her class who is 21 months old and he cries as much as S. But I think he understands that if he cries, the teacher will send him out ( he points to the door and cries and makes vomiting sounds), whereas S cries because she doesn’t really understand what is happening and why she is in a new place. We’ve started talking about her friends in school to S - 2 other girls who are in the same playgroup. One of them went into school with her one day and S was quite happy holding her hand and walking in- though she wailed as soon as I left her hand at the door. When she comes out she says “Babus babus” which is her word for children so she understands that the children are inside playing (she’s usually the first out since she’s one of the two-three most unsettled).
S has started talking quite a bit now- she repeats some things that we say, so we need to be a lot more careful of what we are saying. Some new additions are ‘boo’ for blue, ‘nahin’ for no; ‘dat’ for duck, ‘abbu’ for hurt, ‘bhaiya’ for brother, ‘bow wow’ for dog. S has also become a lot more friendly towards other people. During the weekend we had gone to a hotel for brunch and S was on her high chair. The lead singer of the band which plays there came near our table, and S saw her and started waving enthusiastically to her. So much so that the lady came over to our table and played with S for some time. After that it was bye bye to that lady continuously for the next ½ hour.
S has also become much more adventurous in the playground. At the park she climbs up the small slide steps, walks over to the bouncy bridge, walks across that, climbs up the next level, and comes sliding down the big slide. All the time I keep running behind her trying to ensure she doesn’t fall down. The other day the hubby had taken to the park and when he came back told me matter of factly that she had climbed up the spiders web on her own and come down the spiral slide- which is meant for much elder kids. I had tried to stop her from doing this the other day because she would fall quite far down if she missed a step, and was quite zapped that the hubby was so cool.

The hubby keeps insisting that we give her the same food that we are eating since I still give her only baby stuff/mashed food, so last evening I enthusiastically prepared tomato rice (a cheese, tomato, rice dish) and that took me more than an hour since I’m terrible in the kitchen, and S absolutely hated it and after I spent ½ hour convincing her to eat it and entertaining her with all sorts of distractions she proceeded to throw up the entire meal. She did enjoy the Cerelac afterwards- so that puts paid to any plans of my starting cooking anytime soon.