No Room at the Inn


I told Cooper last night, after we had done our now fairly regular drive-by of potential daycares, that there's no room at the inn. He smiled up at me from his car seat almost as if he wanted to say, "Well just stay home with me mommy!" I wish.
Maybe my expectations are too high but after doing our online research to find centers and home for daycare, making dozens of calls to first see if they had an infant opening and then, if they do, could we come visit them and start the next week we have found ourselves less then impressed by nearly all of our options. It seems the "good" ones are either too far away, full or just out of our price range. The ones that have openings are well...just not good enough.
I'm happy for our friend who was taking care of Cooper. She is going back to her full time office job, but selfishly I wish she weren't. We knew we had a great thing going, which makes this even more of a challenge. Between growing up with my parents daycare, working in a Montessori school in college and having Cooper being taken care of by a friend ,trying to find the next best place is just seeming nearly impossible.
Time is running out. How could it be so hard to find someone to take care of our little guy?

Comments

Crystal Kelley said…
Because he's your little guy. I was in the same position with Amber 21 years ago. She was 18 mos. old when we had to leave the daycare she had been in since three months. The lady was a gem. Everyone I interviewed (and there were a lot) didn't cut it. I remember friends chiding me that no one would meet my expectations. "Crystal, she gives swimming lessons," one said. "Yes, she takes six toddlers swimming by themselves in Lake Minnetonka and she doesn't have a gate over her jagged basement stairs!" (She said they all "learned" not to fall down it.) I wound up quitting my job to try to stay home. It lasted the three most glorious months I can remember. By then, Amber, ever the social butterfly, was dying for friends. She used to hug photos of babies and say, "These are Amber's friends." By the time I found a daycare center (which I was wholeheartedly against until I found a great one), she couldn't wait for me to go so she could play. So blog about that. What kinds of providers have you run into? Oh the stories I could tell you...
October 7, 2010 at 10:20 AM
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