Today was Zoe's last day in the daycare where she started when we arrived in Stockholm last year. Since we lived in one particular area for the first 3 months (in temporary accommodation) the central daycare coordination could only assign us daycare in that area despite us being 100% sure we were moving to a different area in January. Since then, we have therefore commuted 45 minutes each way with two different subways with Zoe in the stroller, often with stressful experiences. We finally got a new public, Swedish daycare offered back in May but after a bit of legwork (i.e. calling, emailing) I got Zoe into a trilingual daycare very close by, which means the language transition will be gentle (her old one was English only) and that she will keep speaking English in her daily life. The last language is French and my sentiment has been, well, she is already surrounded by three languages, why not a fourth?
I picked her up already at 4pm so we had time to say goodbye and pick up all her things. She was in a great mood and I think she understood that this was her last time there. I had bought two presents for her teachers but they were already on holiday so we left them in the office. Zoe was excited to leave (perhaps because I had told her we were going for pizza with daddy) but as we were half way down the path leading to the subway she paused and turned around. "Bye bye, daycare" she said and looked at me for confirmation. Yes, this was bye bye. I felt a bit sentimental myself because this reminds me what we do to our children all the time: give them friends and take them away again. I am still a bit heart broken over our wonderful nanny that we left in California.
She was easy on the subway despite us having to take three different trains due to closure of one of the lines until October (yet another reason I am thrilled not to have this commute anymore) and we got home early enough to have an ice-cream at the big tree-lined square before meeting Mark at the pizza place. Tomorrow morning we fly down to Copenhagen to spend three and a half weeks with my family. It will be really nice for me to have the vacation I need from work, but it will also be intense times, having Zoe around all the time. I look forward to spending a lot of time with her but hope my family will babysit on occasion.
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