Yesterday was Noah’s first day at the church day care.

It started off a little chaotic — the director had forgotten to leave our file with the curriculum manager, who is also the early morning administrative person. And the early morning teacher in Noah’s classroom was sick, so they were waiting on a sub. But really, all that meant was no paperwork and me hanging out for 30 minutes, playing with Noah in his new classroom.

The nice thing about that is that although I was generally familiar with the room, since Noah was there for Sunday school for almost a year, now I feel like I know it. And I got to meet a couple of the other children and their parents.

I have to admit, I was worried when I left.

Not about Noah, but about traffic. NPR told me that it was 8:19 when I got into my car, and I needed to traverse approximately 90% of the downtown/business district of Atlanta to get to work. My goal was to start that journey before 8 am, in the hopes of missing the worst of the worst traffic.

Either miraculously or luckily, it took less than 15 minutes.

Later in the morning, the director called to apologize for the early morning chaos, which I appreciated. She also told me that Noah seemed to be doing fine, although he was more observing the activities than participating in them.

I told her that I expected it would take him a few days to warm up, and that until then, I thought he would probably be on the quiet side, and mostly play independently.

Turns out, I overestimated.

When I picked Noah up, his primary teacher in this classroom gushed about how wonderful Noah had been — the best adjustment she’d seen in her 25 years of teaching. Noah didn’t run over to hug me, he ran over to show me a truck with big blue wheels. And to announce proudly, “Mommy, I been talking!”

The other children, all around Noah’s age or a little bit younger, wandered over to look at me curiously. While I was trying to persuade Noah to hug me, a little girl volunteered for the hug — which Noah didn’t like one bit.

We were sent on our way with a sippy cup of milk and a handful of goldfish crackers, plus a chorus of “See you tomorrow, Noah!”

Traffic wasn’t great, either from work to day care, or from day care home. But it wasn’t as bad as I feared. I left work about 5:10, and it took just under 20 minutes.

The worst traffic was getting away from downtown, towards home. This week’s to-do list includes emailing the parents I know from church, who also have their kids at the church day care, to ask how they get home. (Well, at least the ones who live in our direction!)

Plus did I mention that they gave us both an activity report — including songs sung and books read — AND a schedule for the transition of Noah and his classmates into the 2-3 year old room? Over the course of 1.5 weeks, beginning after Memorial Day, they’ll be gradually spending more and more time in the new classroom. June 9, Noah and all of his new classmates will be there full time.

I feel like we made the right choice.