Khaisah Goes To School.

As in, the nursery.

Honestly, it was hard for me to do this and to make things worse, my mom made it a lot harder for me to send her to the nursery. Being the first grandchild who is spoilt by her grandparents makes it even more difficult for the grandparents to “let her go” i.e. to allow other people, strangers so to speak, to take care of her. I can totally relate to that and understood the nature of sending “babies to nurseries” can be quite tormenting, especially with the recent news and cases about child abuse, children treated inhumanely etc. You name it, I have considered all the factors relative to sending my child to the nursery.

But a decision to send her to the nursery had to be made. Both of Khaisah’s grandparents are working grandparents, which means that all 4 of them are incapable of escaping from tending to work matters which include meetings – whether domestically or internationally. 

Previously, it was my mom who had been taking care of Khaisah. However, looking at the recent pattern and scenario, my mom who owns a software education training company has to travel frequently to the local and private education institutions in Malaysia. Her presence at these meetings all over the country are inevitable hence, at every case that this happens, I had no choice but to ask my sister in law to babysit (lucky me she’s currently free) or to switch duties with my sister to babysit after class. Safe to say we fell short of having a duty roster as to whom and when these two girls have to baby sit Khaisah. 

Though they were willing to babysit, my husband and I felt that it is our duty to take care of Khaisah and we both agreed that sending Khaisah to the nursery was the best solution to this issue. But we both had our reservations – that the nursery that we intend to send Khaisah has to be impeccable or at least, almost impeccable. It has to be a nursery that’s established with whatever childhood care qualification, clean, good facilities and Montessori-like. 

So we began scouting and we only scouted at two places i.e. our organizations’ nurseries. Having considered many factors, it was only relevant and I was fervent that Khaisah is to be sent to my organization’s nursery. Reason being is simple – that she was just 6 floors down. Should the need for me to be present arises, I am only a call away. Coupled with that reason, the nursery below suited the hypothetical checklist which my husband and I came up with. It satisfied all of the above, in fact it exudes a very friendly environment. From that moment on, we knew our problem’s almost solved, insya Allah.

Booked a spot for Khaisah and thankfully there were a couple of vacancies available. Khaisah’s spot was thus reserved for the month of June onwards.

June came and we were all geared up for her first day. We were anxious, worried yet excited for her. We both knew she’d love the place as she’ll be playing with other kids (she just loves being involved with other kids) 

First day. Spontaneously picked up the toys available and started dancing to the song that was playing on the radio! (Yes she loves dancing too!) I thought, she could deal with this. 

Indeed. As I left (while the teacher distracts her), she was doing well. Till I got a phone call, “Zaza, Khaisah won’t stop crying. Can you come downstairs and see to her?” Guess she must have remembered where’s my mummy, who are these people, gosh I’m so sleepy but I don’t want to sleep with people I don’t know. Haha!

As I arrive, she automatically stopped crying and I knew at that instant she was sleepy as hell. Took her to the breastfeeding room, fed and put her to sleep and sent her back to the nursery. On that day alone, I received 4 phone calls from the nursery requesting me to calm her down (she was crying as loud as she can … poor baby!). Day 1 ended with her not sleeping at all. 

Major problem for day 1: Not sleeping.

Day 2: Not wanting to eat.

Day 3: Not wanting to drink.

Day 4: Better progress overall – she was able to sleep with other babies soundly. But she didn’t want to drink her milk. 

So manja. Haha. Luckily my boss wasn’t around that whole week so it was a lot easier for me to handle this little girl’s adjustment to place. I mean c’mon, even us adults take time to adjust to a new environment, what more a baby. 

Now I leave you with a couple of pictures to show her progression. I’m glad my husband and I made this decision to send her to the nursery. We’re guessing she’ll be learning a lot of things there and I’m also hoping she will attend her kindie there, insya Allah.

First day.

Third day. Happy sangat she was able to sleep. Phew!

This was just yesterday. Too tired lah mummy. I had so much "work" hehe!