To school or not to school?

Mommy's Morning Out sounds lovely, doesn't it? Oh, it does! It sounds refreshing and peaceful and glamorous. So, I decided to look into it. We're living in a nice area with lots of nice churches so I called a few up. The flow with the regular school year and Charlotte wouldn't be able to start until August. She'll be 18 months in August which would put her in toddler 2 class. The recommend nothing shy of 2 days a week, from 9am-1pm and they do art and signing and music everyday!

Decided to go and visit a couple of these programs. Charty is clinging to me, wondering, should I get down and play with those toys or should I stay in mommy's arms? She stayed.

The first church was fantastic. Super nice people, super-nice facility. I was walking out and I said to the director, I don't know, she just seems so young still - this will be really hard for me. She says to me, I know, what you mean, I kept mine home with me until they were 3 years old - at this age, this will be more for you than for her.

And there it was. GUILT

So I call Katy, of course, my child development expert. Fabulous job, Counselor Katy, you were gentle and honest and forthcoming and diplomatic. But I heard you, loud and clear: At 18 months, children are still 'me focused'. She won't start reaping benefits socially until she's 3 years old. At that point, she'll interact and engage with other children. (At 18 months she'll play near them and they'll try and take each other's toys and other children will be mean to Charlotte Rose and she won't be able to tell the teacher!) Preschool is beneficial for 4 year olds, primarily, but if you start them younger than that, say 3 years old, they'll be able to adapt more readily to preschool and gain that much more out of it. But, Ang, it would be great for you and it certainly won't harm Charlotte. It won't necessarily help her in any way, but it won't harm her. Then she's quiet for a minute. Letting it sink in. (She totally knows I'm not going to go through with it.)

I don't think I can do it. She's still a baby and she needs her mommy. We'll see...

What I would really like is 1 day a week for 2 hours. All this 8 hours a week business is just crazy, really.

But guess what we did Sunday? We went to church. We arrived 30 minutes early so we could get Charty settled in the nursery. They had 4 different nursery rooms (wow) all age-appropriate and Ernestine took Charlotte right out of my arms and started walking around, introducing her. Then someone else handed Adam a pager and shooed us away. When church was finished, we ran back to the nursery as fast as we could and there's our little angel, rocking away on a Little Tykes seahorse, bow crooked.