Daycare woes

Since John has started taking classes full time this Fall, Owen has started at daycare. We found a place that we really like and that seemed like a great fit for Owen as well. He went 3 days last week and the first two went well. Friday he cried when John pulled up in the parking lot and Owen has been crying at drop off since then. The teacher says he just cries for a few minutes and then plays fine all day. Once other parents start coming to pick other kids up, he gets whiney when he sees the door opening, hoping it's one of us. This would all be fine, but it's also effecting his sleeping at home. We think he must be expecting us to leave or something because it's so hard to get him to bed now! He used to be an awesome sleeper, going right to sleep when we put him down at 8:00 and sleeping until at least 7am. Now, as soon as we start walking down the hallway to his room he freaks out. Major seperation anxiety! Monday night he woke up in the middle of the night and no matter what we did, we couldn't get him to stop crying or back to sleep for almost an hour and a half. Last night we had to go back to some of our "crying it out" techinques of staying out of his room for a bit, then going back after 5 minutes of crying, then after another 10, then another 15. He finally stopped crying last night just before the 15 minutes were up. That's almost over half an hour of crying! It's exhausting us, we feel terrible that he's so upset and thinks that we'd leave him, and he's tired too. I'm know it's just a phase, and it will get better, but when you're in the thick of it, it sucks.

On a positive note, Owen is LOVING books and almost all of a sudden. Up until about a week ago he would just rip the pages and not pay attention when we tried to read to him. Now he's constantly saying "book, book" and wants up to pick him up so he can get to the bookshelf and pick something to look at. I even find him sometimes on the couch looking at a book, turning the pages like he's actually reading to himself. So cute! He's started saying a lot more words, even though we're mainly the only ones who understand him. Book, ball, fan, balloon, I know, please, what is that, sock, and shoe are all words I've recently heard. He doesn't say them consistently, but when I ask him to bring me his shoes, he'll wander off muttering shoes to himself and then bring them to me! He does a lot of animal sounds too, like frog, crow, duck, cow, cat and dog. Also, he stopped pooping in the tub. I think that's a major milestone! :)