Addison's Adventures: Checking out Day Care #1

by Mommy

Before Addison was born, James and I had "the talk"... you know, the one about if/when I'll be starting work - the magic number was 18... when Addison turns 18 months... and if you look at Addi's age tracker to the right, you'll notice that her 17 month picture is up!

Now, the big question is child care... we've been talking about this a lot lately too... What would be best for Addison and what would be best for us?

We're fortunate enough to have her retired Grandma on board to take Addison on days we need her to... Addison can learn from Grandma and get lots of love and attention from both Grandma and Grandpa. She'll also get over her mild fear of dogs (she doesn't like being on the ground when the dogs are out of their cages - they usually like to jump on her and sniff her...)

We'd like her to gain some social skills and learn to be around kids her own age... James and I were talking about how great Addi is with her Ates & Kuyas and adults... but she prefers not to interact with kids her own age sometimes (unless they're in a stroller or in a playground). We'd like her to continue to learn things everyday... we want a place that has some sort of a curriculum... and absolutely NO TV!!! The caregivers need to be loving and caring - we have to get a good vibe from them. The place MUST be clean - it's kinda hard to keep a place clean with all kinds of kids messing it up, but still... it MUST be clean, not necessarily tidy... but CLEAN. We want some sort of order, discipline... Addison has to continue to learn about boundaries - what she can and can't do... We're not asking for too much are we? There's actually more that we're looking for, but I won't mention it here...

Anyhoo...

We visited our first family day care... it was sort of in our area, about a 30 min walk away from home (including a stop at a bakery for a red velvet cupcake... YUMMMMMMMM!)

The three of us walked in and a friendly lady answered the door... she gets my name wrong (I'm used to it, but James corrected her... "It's MariE") and gushes at how cute Addison is. We walk through her house to the back part of her house that she converted into a child care area... There's a place for eating, for reading and a mini plastic jungle gym that the kids can play on. Her backyard is HUGE, with a bigger jungle gym.

As we walk in, I'm thinking... OMG, I feel like I'm at a doctor's office with all these dirty toys and scuffs on the wall (and kids with runny noses - which, I know is unavoidable). I notice that the box for PUZZLE is spelled PUZZEL. (It was one of the first things that caught my eye!) We give her the benefit of the doubt and continue the tour and ask her questions. She's a very nice lady and she believes in giving organic food as much as possible (awesome!). However, I felt like she was putting on a bit of a show. When she called the kids for storytime, it took longer than 5 minutes to get them over to the rainbow mat. She started singing songs and, I swear, some of these kids had blank, confused looks on their faces! It was obvious that this isn't part of the routine... I should stop complaining about this place and just say that, well, we're never going to this family day care again! One last thing though - her insurance was expired and she had no clue! It was only expired 3 months, but she had no idea and I totally made her nervous and for the rest of our time there, she couldn't think of anything else! She even excused herself at one point to look for her insurance paperwork to see if there was a renewal! If I was responsible for 14 kids, (KIDS! ACCIDENT PRONE KIDS!) I would for damn sure be on top of my insurance validity... I wouldn't be able to sleep otherwise!

We left on decent terms, I said I'd call her if we decide to go with this day care.

Addi and I enjoyed our walk home... we passed by a playground and Addi wouldn't let me stop without some time on the swings ("Wee wee wee" she said over and over again...) How could I say no! This kind of thing will be restricted to the weekends now!