Blinking back tears herself, Jennifer Weber hands her sobbing 2-year-old to day-care director Linda Valentin, says a final goodbye to him, and walks out of the toddler room at Arc-en-Ciel in Jamaica Plain. She takes a few deep breaths, shakes her head as if to clear it, and makes her way to Valentin's office, where she spends the next 20 minutes watching Daniel on a TV monitor.
Even before she gets there, Daniel has stopped crying. Snuggled tightly against Valentin, he pops his thumb in his mouth and barely moves for 10 minutes. It's as if he's recharging. When he hears his friend Ruby laugh, though, he looks her way, and when his teacher, Miss Barbara, invites some children to play, he watches with interest. Finally Valentin sits at the Play Doh table with Daniel on her lap. It's not long before Daniel slides onto his own chair, asks for the green Play Doh, and begins to play.
What makes a happy, well-adjusted toddler turn into such a sad sack?
At the top of the list is any dramatic change at home. Daniel has two: twin sisters Lily and Molly.
''He's entitled," says Valentin, with just a hint of understatement. Valentin also knows what parents go through: ''a mixture of guilt, ambivalence, worry, and heartbreak."
http://www.arcencieldaycare.com/globe-news.html