Daycare Diva

We sunk yet another rung lower on the ladder of utopian parenting yesterday. For ther record, rungs we have passed on the way down include:

• allowing our child to drink chocolate milk solely so Mommy can eat spoonfuls of raw, undiluted, orgasmic Nestle Quik straight out of the box;
• failing to read to her on a daily basis, largely due to the fact that she likes to either eat the books or use them as projectile weapons -- the exception being "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" which has been read soooooo many times that the only thing Mommy now sees when that book gets toted out is an oncoming migraine;
• not teaching her baby sign language, although somehow without our prodding she has perfected a very snooty, dismissive, Queen-of-England-esque wave that makes you feel like you should immediately remove yourself from her regal presence, you annoying piece of filth;
• allowing the TV to be on, all the time, because frankly, a Daddy sans-Simpsons or Mommy sans-SportsCenter is not someone you want to associate with-- and besides, she learns some colorful new words when Mommy is watching the Tigers;
• encouraging her to follow Mommy's diet plan of carbs, carbs with a side of carbs, washed down by a carb-shake (hey -- she likes carbs. They mostly don't end up on the floor, or on/in/under the dog. Whatever works at this point);
• and sometimes, God forbid, not bathing her every day unless there was a REALLY angry poop involved, or Daddy fed her.

Yesterday, however, we topped all of that as we began the ritual of abandoning our child with strangers 9 hours a day. Very, very, VERY expensive strangers. Molly started daycare yesterday, after spending the previous year in the blissfully ignorant dreamworld of one or the other of her Grandmas, wherein she developed the theory that yes, indeed, the world DOES SO revolve around Molly.

Yesterday was a rude awakening. Many of my friends were more concerned about how I was going to react to the new daycare situation. I suppose if Molly were to have cried, sobbed, clung to my leg like a...a...leg-clinging...thing...I would have felt more remorse. As it happened, we set her down in her new classroom and she took one look around at the toys toys toys toys MANY MANY TOYS, WHY THE HELL DID MY IDIOT PARENTS NOT BUY ME ALL OF THESE TOYS ALREADY?!?!??!?! and she was off. She got her grubby little clutches (they were only grubby because Daddy fed her breakfast, and apparently Murphy didn't do a very thorough job of licking them, the preferred method of Daddy post-meal hygiene) around a plastic croissant and a plastic pear, and weren't nothin' or nobody gonna take those away from her.

Some innocent little boy wandered over to see who this new hot blond chick was and what toys she might have and she promptly let him know that these were HER FAKE CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST ITEMS THANKYOUVERYMUCH and the reign of Molly the Magnificent had begun.

When I picked her up yesterday, she briefly turned and looked at me, scowled, gave me the "piss off, peon" wave and went back to trying to beat another hapless little boy (what kind of wuss boys are in this place??) over the head with a school bus toy because HE WAS HOLDING THE XYLOPHONE, and apparently did not get the memo that all toys, everywhere within eyesight, in any situation, are clearly meant for Molly ALONE. Damn interloper, messing with her domain!!

Her teacher sing-songingly reminded her, "Now Molly, we need to sha-are!"

I laughed the smug laugh of an only child and shook my head at this poor teacher. Whatever they are paying these teachers, it's not enough if they are going to have to be the poor saps who teach this child that one, there are actually other children in the world and two, some of the toys on earth do, in fact, belong to them. Good luck with that.

In case you're wondering, I did fine. The daycare folks called me twice to let me know that she was having a great day, and more importantly, that she hadn't yet lodged plastic pastries into other children in such a manner that surgical extraction methods were necessary. Still waiting to hear how today is going, but hoping that in the words of my media idol, the great Gary Gnu of "The Great Space Coaster," "No gnu-s is good gnu-s."