Penny cried this morning when we were getting ready to leave. She hugged me and said, "Don't go to work, Mommy!" She asked for extra hugs and kisses and "special kisses" and more hugs and kisses.

And I know that once she's at daycare and Matt's left, she gets over it and laughs and plays and has a grand time with her friends. But that doesn't really make it any easier.

She never really went through the usual separation anxiety stage as a 1-year-old, so we're having trouble coping with it now. I expect it's mostly just a phase that we're going to have to wait out. All the online resources I'm finding want to talk about babies, not preschoolers.

If it doesn't get better in another few weeks, we may have to ask her doctor to help out.

Tonight is Penny's daycare's "back to school" night. I think the plan is for Matt to drop Penny off at home and then go talk to her teachers by himself; she really does not do very well when we take her to after-school functions at school.

Which means no Jazzercise for me, or at least not tonight. I might try to go tomorrow or Friday to make up for it, but we'll see how that works out.

One good thing to come out of Penny's recent bout of separation anxiety: Matt wants her to go to the local Montessori school. I'm pretty ambivalent about what preschool she goes to -- I never thought any of the Montessori kids I've had any kind of edge over anyone else -- and I've been sort of nervous about the stress of trying to get her to make the change.

I mean, she pitches fits when they want her to go to a different room at the same daycare, nevermind an entirely different location with entirely different teachers and entirely different kids.

But the Montessori school starts accepting applications in October. If she's going to pitch a fit every day anyway, we might as well be accomplishing something with it.

--Liz