"What's daycare like?" Ji Yeon asked when Dil brought Chuckie and Kimi over.
"It was scary at first." Chuckie told her."It was so scary most of the time, I don't even remember it."
"You do remember the ice cream at the end though right?' Kimi asked.
"Oh yeah, after all the scary stuff happened, like uh seeing two heads in a ball pit, that turned out ot be normal boys, we got ice cream." Chuckie concluded.
"Nothing scary happened when I went to daycare once." Tommy said coming over to the group and passing out cookies.
"What happened to you?" Ji Yeon asked relieved that someone else could reassure her.
"Well." Tommy thought for a minute."I cried when my mommy left."
"That's gonna happen for sure tomorrow." Min Jun said with his mouth full of cookie.
JI Yeon glared at her brother and threw her cookie at his head. She was interested in eating anyway.
"It's perfectly ok. You'll be in a new place, but don't worry. Your mommy will come back just like mine did. Just don't do anything to get in trouble like I did. You'll have the longest time out of your life." Tommy explained.
"What did you do to get in trouble?" Ji Yeon gulped. She had a feeling she would be going in lots of time outs for biting other kids.
"I don't remmeber, but I made some friends. We even tried to escape together, by making a block tower and using a claydoe key to open the door, it didn't work though cuz my mommy showed up just as I was trying to get the door open." Tommy said trying to reassure Ji Yeon.
"Why did you want to escape?" Ji Yeon asked.
"Well." Tommy thought."There was gross healthy cookies for one thing."
"This really isn't helping me feel better." JI Yeon muttered.
"All you gots to know is daycare is fun." Kimi assured her."It might be scary at first, but you get to do fun stuff like running through a parachute and eating ice cream."
"If I can survive one day of daycare, I know you can." Chuckie told her.
"Let us know how it goes whenever we see you again." Dil called as Ji Yeon and Min Jun were leaving.
Later on in the evening Ji Yeon sat in her walker watching her mother make dinner and talk to her father on a tablet.
"I am dreading tomorrow." Mi Sun said while she made dinner.
"You said she did good on the practice run." Jin said.
"She did better then I thought she would, but she kept looking back at me and now she's starting to suck her thumb, and none of the cups I bought are working out." Mi Sun sighed.
"So just give her bottle and binky back. You're her mother. It's youe decision when she stops using these things. If you think she's not ready after trying for almost a week then maybe she isn't." JIn advised.
"And what if I take her back to the dentist and her teeth are all messed up?" Mi Sun asked.
Ji Yeon was becoming more anxious hearing the conversation between her parents. She stuck her thumb in her mouth to help her relax.
"She goes back in a year. By then she'll probably be over the bottle and most likely the binky too. She already doesn't use that much." Jin assured her.
"Maybe you're right." Mi Sun said picking Ji Yeon up." She already has to deal with something new tomorrow. I want her to be as comfortable as possible."
"Try to relax. She'll be fine." Jin told her.
They ended the video call soon after and Mi Sun called the other kids to dinner.
Ji Yeon stopped sucking her thumb when she was sat in her high chair. For the first time in a while she felt ok despite what she had to go through tomorrow. She ate some of her dinner, but prefered to drink her bottle instead.
That night Ji Yeon lay in her parent's bed. She still felt slightly nervous about going to daycare. She began to suck her thumb. She was surprised when Mi Sun pulled her hand away and stuck a binky in her mouth. Ji Yeon was surprised because it was the same binky she had been hiding all week. She looked over to her crib and noticed the sheet and blanket weren't in there anymore. She didn't care if her secret had been found. she was just glad to have her binky back. She eventually fell asleep, only it wasn't a good sleep.
Ji Yeon tossed and turned in her sleep while a nightmare plagued her.
In her dream she was brought into daycare and all of the kids kept taking toys away from her. She fought to get them back, earning her a timeout forever. Her binky was taken away, and her hands were taped together to stop her from sucking her thumb. She watched herself sit in a small playpen getting older and older as her mother never came back for her.
Ji Yeon woke up crying and didn't stop crying.
"It's ok. We're used to it." A short woman with dark brown hair said as she took Ji Yeon from Mi Sun when they arrived at the daycare.
Mi Sun began to walk away, only making Ji Yeon cry harder. She cried so much that she threw up.
"I'm sorry." Mi Sun apologized trying to hold her emotions in at seeing her daughter so upset.
"It's ok. It happens more then you think." The blond woman from the day before said taking Ji Yeon so she could get her cleaned up.
"We got this. She'll be fine. We'll send you updates throughout the day." The brown haired woman assured her as she wiped her shirt off.
"How did drop off go?" Miju asked meeting her sister in the hall near the ER.
"Terrible." Mi Sun answered."I feel like such a bad mom."
"Well don't. It's good for her." Miju assured her as a patient came in.
They went their seperate ways. Mi Sun felt even worse when she remembered that she was doing her peds rotation that day.
Meanwhile in the daycare Ji Yeon had been changed into some clean clothes and was currently sitting in a corner sucking her thumb watching the other kids play. Her nightmare was still fresh in her mind and she was afraid to grab a toy.
"Want to play with us?" A girl with curly blond hair asked as she and another shorter girl with brown hair brought over the bead toy.
"Ok." Ji Yeon said taking her thumb out of her mouth.
"Are you new here? I've never seen you before." The brown haired girl asked as they set the toy down and began to move the beads around.
"Yeah. Today is my first day here." Ji Yeon told them.
"What's your name?' The blond girl asked.
"Ji Yeon." Ji Yeon answered.
"I'm Emma, and this is Evie." The blond girl pointed to the bruntte.
The girls played together until snack time.
Ji Yeon was feeling much better after having her snack of cold cucumbers and bananas.
After snack time they played with bubbles until it was nap time.
JI Yeon spent the rest of the day playing with her new friends. Everything was fine until their parents came to pick them up at the end of the day. Ji Yeon then remembered her dream where she was left at the daycare forever.
She was about to start crying, but didn't as she felt herself being lifted into the air.
"Ready to go home?" Mi Sun asked as she picked Ji Yeon up.
Ji Yeon sighed in relief and hugged her mother.