Well, today I signed Shake up for a daycare center, despite the fact that I really would rather not.
–I just don’t want to burden my poor mother-in-law any more than we have to — I mean really, there’s only so many times you can ask family to babysit for you before family stops visiting 
.
–I have this neurotic aversion toward having a stranger come to my home to look after my kid, too. Not because I can’t trust a stranger to properly look after my kid, but because I’m one of those women whose house can never be clean enough when company comes to visit — things could be completely sterilized and I’d still be apologizing for the “mess”. I’d be terrified that this stranger would call child protective services on me for having an unsanitary living environment for my children if I didn’t have everything absolutely spotless and, let’s face it, I’m uptight enough as it is so I don’t need or want the added stress of freaking out over something like that.
–I’ve taken all the classes I can, it seems, that will fit around my husband’s work schedule. Anyone who’s married to the military (or has been IN the military) knows about the wonky hours, and I can’t guarantee that Mister Man will be home to look after the kiddo after working hours OR on Saturdays, anymore. I also seem to be the last person to hear about which days he is or isn’t working and securing a last-minute babysitter just ain’t going to happen.
–Taking on line classes at this particular college is not recommended, even by the staff. I’ve taken a few despite the warnings, and learned the hard way that what everyone was talking about was correct. They just aren’t worth it here. The “hybrid” (half on line, half in the class) courses suck about half as much so I do take them. But those are still two hours a week of class time and there is no childcare at the college. Booh. The classic classes are only available for GE courses and those can be around FOUR hours long, each. Yikes.
So I scheduled, rescheduled and re-rescheduled my classes for this summer and came to the sad sad conclusion that, at the very least, part time daycare would be necessary. It’s not that I can’t afford it or anything, I just don’t like the idea of it. I remember the old days when my mother would (rarely) drop us off at daycare and it was sort of like, “Here kid, do whatever in this large room until your parents come pick you up…” There was no structure and so I’d often stand there feeling utterly lost, confused, and a little frustrated. I didn’t want to do that to my kids. I’ve also witnessed, through my job in the military, the dual mil families and what they went through with daycare and a lot of the negative things it did to the kids. They very rarely saw their parents, and the moms and dads would complain about these “odd habits” that their children were picking up that they certainly did not teach them. Or about how unruly and disrespectful their kids were toward them when they did see them.
I’m not saying that dual working families are horrible or anything, you do what you have to to get by, yeah? I just didn’t want to go through that sort of thing with my kids if it wasn’t necessary.
So I looked and looked at several daycare centers around town recently and finally decided upon one that didn’t look so bad for Shake. She’ll only be there for three days out of the week so that’s not too terrible. They offer two full meals and two snacks a day for the kids and they cook the food right there for them. Awesome. If I’m going to have to pay out the nose for childcare then free meals are a definite plus. It’s also pretty cool that they try to feed the kids a wide variety of foods so that they can try different things.
They also have a classroom type of environment with a set schedule of activities, skill building, arts and crafts, etc. Now, this is something the other daycares I went to visit lacked and one of the big things that bothered me when I was a kid. Once I started preschool, I was all cool with the idea of being away from home. At least there was a purpose for being there, right? I feel better that Shake’ll be benefiting while I’m away from her instead of being tossed into a huge room to “do whatever” until Mommy comes back. Heck, they even do potty training! BONUS!
Today I got to sit through part of a typical daycare day with Shake and liked everything I saw. The building is brand new and squeaky clean. The classes are kept small (12 kids per class) and all the children are within 6 months of each other in age. There is even a strict sick policy. If your kid is sick then they require you to keep them home. They even reserve the right to decide if your child is sick and, not only send them home, but to separate the sick child from the other children until the parent comes to pick them up. When I first read that, I thought it sounded a little harsh but then when it’s someone else’s kid who’s sick I’m usually all, “ZOMG! Get that kid away from mine! I don’t want to have to deal with snotty noses and all night crying marathons!” so really, it does make sense. It’s not like they’re locking the poor child up in a broom closet or anything.
Unfortunately, all this premium stuff means that this particular daycare is a bit more spendy than the other ones. It’s not out of my budget, but the other ones were only $6 an hour. This one? Yeeeaaahhhh, I won’t even disclose that bit of info. I figure Mr. H is going to kill me several times when he hears what I’ve done, but it’s my disability check and if I want to spend it on what I think is the best option for daycare for Shake then it’s worth it. I’ll sit through him being pissed off at me if it means I feel better about where I’m putting my kid while I’m at class.
And besides, it’s only until August.
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