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Week 2: Sprints away from me in utter, unabated anti-mother joy when we arrive. Ninety minutes later, I'm called to retrieve her because her screaming is so intense it's a violation of the Geneva Convention; she's trampling all over the human rights of the other kids by inflicting scream torture on them. Stop by coffeehouse for a cookie, where I'm reduced to a sobbing, snotty disaster because Carole King's "You've Got a Friend" is playing. Start making plans for a really painful demise for Ms. King while envisioning what her kinky, curly head will look like mounted on my living room wall.

Week 3: Do not go quietly into that good daycare center, Child. No. Instead, scream like you're stuck in a wheat thrasher while attempting to pull my leg from my hip socket. Teacher forced to perform surgical procedure to remove child from my person. Teacher not paid nearly enough for this shit. Neither am I, come to think of it.

Week 4: Knowing that my child is of a delicate nature, the teachers are proactive, making sure there's an episode of "Teletubbies" playing when we arrive. The screaming commences, but she doesn't repeat her baby octopus leg-suction routine. When I leave, she's crying, but sitting her her teacher's lap, glaring at me. "That's fine, Former Mom. Leave. Go on. Go live your free-wheelin' jacked-up life, eating cookies and drinking espresso at the goddamn coffee house. See if I care. I'm Miss Michelle's baby now, bitch."

Week 5: Clara Jane has an exceptionally large vocabulary; she's about a year ahead of the average on language skills. Still, she doesn't have the skills to express her her more complex feelings in words, so she had to rely on facial expressions. And her face had this to say:

"No!!!! Oh my God, No! You are not abandoning me at this toddler internment camp again! No!!!! They make me eat rat droppings and watch "Barney" and I'm not going, Mom! I'm not!"

And then she ran out of facial expressions and commenced the usual screaming, which continued when we got to her classroom, where she promptly ran to play with her friends - still crying, occasionally shooting me the stink-eye, which is facial expression for, "I hope you burn your tongue on your latte, you fucking whore."

The word on the cell block is, she calmed down quickly and had a good day. Although there was a situation at lunch in which she stole her teacher's lunch and refused to give up the grapes. And she made a shiv during arts and crafts time. But she didn't scream nearly as much, so no one really cared that she might cut them. Because the cut's better than the scream.

That kid's gonna be ok. Just don't let her corner you.