Yesterday was my first day back at work. It was a little bit of a weird day - Luke woke up around 6am, so rather than feed him and go back to sleep, I fed him, got ready to go, and ran a couple of errands before I went in to work at 7:45am. Then I spent the next hour trying to remember my computer's password.
It was a good day at work, and I went home on my lunch break so that Ryan and I could take Luke to his first afternoon with our new sitter. We loaded up the spare diaper bag with all of his "school" things and drove over to her house. We rang the doorbell and took him inside. We told the sitter about his gDiapers (which she had agreed to use) and his formula and gave her all of his paperwork, and... that was it. No tears, no drama.
Everyone kept telling me how hard it would be to go back to work, but truth be told, I was eager to get back down to business. We knew that I would be going back to work all along, and that Luke would be going to some kind of day care or babysitter, so there was no wrestling with whether it was the right decision or not. It's what's right for our family right now.
After work, I picked Luke up, got the daily report from the sitter (who seemed to really like the gDiapers!) and we went home. I changed him, we walked the dogs, and then he was very sleepy, so we laid down and took a nap. We'll learn our new routine as we go along.
Showing posts with label day care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label day care. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Choosing a day care
Next week I'll be back at work, which I'm excited about, but the thing that I'm not too excited about is that we will have to send Luke to be cared for by people we don't really know in the afternoons. I realize that there are people whose job it is to do this, and have much more experience in caring for babies than I do, but it's still terribly unnerving to think about, and I'm glad that Ryan will be the one dropping Luke off every day, and not me.
We have a day care all lined up, deposits paid, start date set, forms filled out, etc. But this morning I got a phone call from another small day care that's run by a church and happens to be loosely affiliated with our church, saying that they have an opening in the infant room on September 1st. Now that we have a choice, it's a tough thing to wrestle with.
The first day care is close to where I work. They don't have a half-day program, which means we're paying for all-day care, even though we only plan on taking Luke there in the afternoons. On the other hand, we would have the flexibility of having a full day available if, for some reason, Ryan gets called in to work dayside. Since we're paying for all-day care, it's a bit more expensive.
The second day care is nearly downtown. We would only be using the afternoon care, which makes it a little less costly, but we wouldn't have the flexibility of having the mornings available just in case. But I went and toured it this afternoon, and I have to say, I just feel better about this place. The first place seems perfectly adequate, but there have been a couple of things about them that have seemed weird to us. A couple of times, when we've called them, they just answer the phone with "Hello?" - if they answer at all - and then seem cagey about identifying themselves. They told Ryan that it was because they thought he was a solicitor. But if you're running a business, shouldn't you answer the phone every single time and answer a little more professionally than that?
I'm also a little more inclined to go to the second day care because it's affiliated with a church, which appeals to me. The teacher-to-child ratio in the baby classes are the same (1:4) at both, but the teachers in the baby class at #2 are a married couple who have been at this place for 17 and 18 years. That slow turnover is pretty amazing, and it's a big plus to me.
The biggest thing, though, is that the place that called today just gives me a better feeling. I can rationalize the pros and cons all day long about each, but a big part of parenting, I'm learning, is that sometimes your gut just tells you what to do (or what not to do). And with a decision like this, I think that going with our guts may be the most important thing we can do. I guess we'll talk it over tonight when Ryan gets home from work, and see where our guts lead us.
We have a day care all lined up, deposits paid, start date set, forms filled out, etc. But this morning I got a phone call from another small day care that's run by a church and happens to be loosely affiliated with our church, saying that they have an opening in the infant room on September 1st. Now that we have a choice, it's a tough thing to wrestle with.
The first day care is close to where I work. They don't have a half-day program, which means we're paying for all-day care, even though we only plan on taking Luke there in the afternoons. On the other hand, we would have the flexibility of having a full day available if, for some reason, Ryan gets called in to work dayside. Since we're paying for all-day care, it's a bit more expensive.
The second day care is nearly downtown. We would only be using the afternoon care, which makes it a little less costly, but we wouldn't have the flexibility of having the mornings available just in case. But I went and toured it this afternoon, and I have to say, I just feel better about this place. The first place seems perfectly adequate, but there have been a couple of things about them that have seemed weird to us. A couple of times, when we've called them, they just answer the phone with "Hello?" - if they answer at all - and then seem cagey about identifying themselves. They told Ryan that it was because they thought he was a solicitor. But if you're running a business, shouldn't you answer the phone every single time and answer a little more professionally than that?
I'm also a little more inclined to go to the second day care because it's affiliated with a church, which appeals to me. The teacher-to-child ratio in the baby classes are the same (1:4) at both, but the teachers in the baby class at #2 are a married couple who have been at this place for 17 and 18 years. That slow turnover is pretty amazing, and it's a big plus to me.
The biggest thing, though, is that the place that called today just gives me a better feeling. I can rationalize the pros and cons all day long about each, but a big part of parenting, I'm learning, is that sometimes your gut just tells you what to do (or what not to do). And with a decision like this, I think that going with our guts may be the most important thing we can do. I guess we'll talk it over tonight when Ryan gets home from work, and see where our guts lead us.
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