Home away from Home

A few weeks ago Diana and I went and toured 3 day cares in hopes of finding a home for Peanut when Diana has to go back to work in March. I don't know where I got the idea but it has always been ingrained in me that you always do this early because all the best schools fill up and you are left with second rate places to put your child.

We live within 2 miles of three day cares and one is within walking distance from our new house. The great thing about this is I can literally go pick up the little nut by walking to the place to get him or her, and that means Diana's work schedule won't be as much of an issue.

As I said, we toured 3 places and they were accidentally toured in order from best to worst. The first, and the one both closest to the house and the one we are going with, was clearly the front runner. The staff seems pretty solid and trained well. The layout of the facility is logical and setup to help promote learning and personal space, and the building was clean and welcoming.

Place 2 would have been the choice had place 1 not been in existence. It was a high B+/A- in that it offered almost everything that our first choice did but was smaller and a bit more sparse in regard to the work stations. They also didn't present themselves as well as Place 1. It was kind of like if you were interviewing candidates for a job and they both had great resumes but one showed up in a suit and the other in a polo.

Place 3 was a solid C. It didn't appear that the staff was very engaged with the newborns and the headmaster of the school was very bland and it came off as uninterested. I don't know if it was her personality, but it was not energetic at all. Even with the savings of $80 a week we were certain that we wouldn't be using them.

So, we are now locked in with our deposit and will begin tackling the paperwork to send our unborn child to the Children's Courtyard near our house. This all seems to be happening quickly but we are 10 weeks away from the arrival of our baby.

Trinity