Day Care Visits (28 weeks 1 day)

I am now in the 3rd trimester. It has been a journey but I am very happy to have made it this far. If baby would happen to be born now, the chances for baby to survive are high.

Last week we started looking at day cares. We know that baby will be attending day care after my maternity leave. Everyone’s situation is different and for us our child must go to day care. I am unable to be a stay at home mom. Brian and I have talked extensively about day care and we are both satisfied with our decision to send baby. Therefore we must find the perfect day care for baby and us.

Our first day care tour was at Kinder Care near Brian’s work. We met with the director and toured for over an hour. Day cares are really amazing. I think they get a bad rap however they really teach children a lot starting very young. At Kinder Care, there are three different infant rooms so the 3 month olds are not with the 14 month olds. We really liked that. Also in that room, they start teaching baby sign language. We don’t know sign language so this is just one example that they will be able to teach our child something we cannot.

Nowhere in the day care are there TV’s that the children just sit there and watch. They have rocking chairs and interactive toys for babies. They have a schedule for the day with lessons plans as they get older. In the infant room, baby has his/her own crib and dresser. Baby would have his/her name on it. It is cute. As parents of an infant, you give the day care a report of when baby naps and eats and they follow that. At the end of the day, you get a written report that everything baby did for that day (eat, sleep, potty, play, etc).

We toured each of the rooms since our plan is to find a day care and stick with it until baby goes to school. Obviously things can change but we don’t want to be changing day care every year. We really liked it and think it would be a good fit for us and baby.

Also last week we toured The Goddard School. Again it was a very nice day care. One thing that we like about day cares is it gives the child structure and social interaction that cannot be learned at home. The Goddard School is very similar to Kinder Care. There are some differences but we don’t think we could go wrong with either of them.

Things we liked a little better at Kinder Care is that they are open from 6:30am to 6:30pm. That would allow us to drop off baby early if needed. The Goddard School does not open until 7am. Also Kinder Care will supply the child with breakfast, lunch and two snacks a day once they are eating food. It would be nice not to have to pack meals each day. Also The Goddard School is closed two weeks between Christmas and New Years. That means Brian would have to take vacation during that time each year because I would not be able to get that time off working at a hospital. Again we could make arrangements but these are little things that are having us lean towards Kinder Care.

We still have at least three more day cares to tour before making a decision. We want to make sure that we make an informed decision and not just pick one. Day cares are expensive however we really believe it will be best for our child to attend. The socialization and learning should be worth it. As we continue to tour more, I will update on how we are doing with this process.

Also last week we went to a Halloween store on November 1 because all costumes were 50% off that day only. We bought baby a Halloween costume for next year. We really like to plan ahead. Baby is going to be a monkey next year. It is so cute!!

We have had all kinds of troubles recently with appliances around the house. First our refrigerator water dispenser is not working properly. The water has what we call “floaties” in it. Brian tried replacing the water line thinking that would fix it however it did not. We are still trying to figure that out. I am very annoyed that I don’t have my ice and filtered water. Then our fireplace was putting off some weird odor. Brian took that apart. We realized it was a chemical reaction between open flame and wood stain. Brian stained the baby’s room woodwork where the old doors use to be. Even with the door closed it caused a terrible kerosene like smell whenever we used the fireplace or oven. We had to evacuate the house leaving all windows open for a while until the smell was gone (remember it’s pretty cold here). That was not fun but at least we have that fixed. Now our furnace is not working. The good news is at least our fireplace is working. Brian thinks the igniter is bad. He ordered a part online, but we will be without a furnace for the next few days until it arrives.

Our lives are extremely busy right now. Every night we are either touring day cares, going to child birthing class, making doctor appointments, or heading downtown for a Cavs game. We have also been working longer hours so it has been a little crazy. I am trying not to get too burned out, but sometimes it's difficult. I am hoping once we decide on a day care things will slow down a little bit for a while... however next we need to start interviewing pediatricians next!