Daycare Day 1

I took Anja to daycare this morning at 9:00. It went really well. I stayed for half an hour to meet the other kids and make sure Anja was fine. I think she's still too young to really be concerned about being held by strangers, but I still wanted to make sure. The other kids have known she was coming for a while, and when I pulled up they were all at the window looking out. As I got closer to the door I could hear them yelling, "They're here! They're here!". There were three other kids there (and a baby sleeping). I met Owen and Cassandra (about 3 or 4 years old) and Zoe, 2. All three kids wanted to hug her at the same time and give her toys. Owen especially really loved her, it was very cute. The place has an open floor plan, with a toy/play area on one side for the older kids, complete with a plastic play house and lots of toys and books. The other side of the house, with a kitchen in between, has pack 'n plays for the two babies and baby-safe toys. When the babies are having "tummy time" on the floor, this area is separated by a gate so the toddlers don't fall on them. But most of the time all the kids and babies are together, including for daily story time and activity times. I think this will be great for Anja, to be around kids.

She was pretty subdued when I dropped her off, she hadn't been awake for very long. She seemed pretty content watching the other kids. I tried to say bye to her but she kept looking around me to try to see the other kids. It reminded me of the story my mom tells about dropping me off at daycare for the first time. I think I was maybe 2 years old. She put me down and said, "Bye Susie," and I said, "Bye Mommy" while running toward the toys and never looked back. My mom cried but I never did!

Brenda, our daycare provider, said that this week will be a low key week with the kids since it's Anja's first week. They won't have many activities this week and may deviate from their schedule as needed. The general schedule each day is play time until 9:00, 9:00-10:00 is story time, 10:00-11:30 or so is play time, then lunch. 12:30-3:00 or so is quiet time/nap time for everyone. 3:00-4:30 is play time. And at 4:30 they get to watch a video as parents start to arrive. They also have special activities and crafts depending on the week (ie: green foods for St. Patricks Day, Easter Egg hunts, Halloween dress up, etc). These are mostly for the toddlers and older, obviously. They are also learning sign language - this week they are learning to sign colors. Anja will only be there from 9-3 each day for now.

Searching for daycare earlier this year was pretty hard. We can't afford a daycare center, which is the most common type of care and easiest to find. So I cold-called phone numbers from the statewide list of licensed daycare providers. Most didn't have any openings, the rest were too expensive for us. The most common price for daycare was $800/month. Others that we could afford were ruled out just because I didn't get a good feeling from them on the phone. In the end we visited three places that sounded okay. The place we ultimately chose was first, and I really liked it. The other two were pretty scary. My favorite was the rambling old farmhouse-type place with a completely open door policy. We walked in and the young girl working there said, "Who are you here to pick up?"! When I asked her how many kids she was watching at the time, she looked around and counted heads, then said, "five." It was chaos at that place. The third place had a large finished basement where they keep the kids all the time. It was piled to the ceiling (no exaggeration) with toys and puzzles and games. Kids had to walk through corridors of plastic toys and boxes to find a place to play. And they have 12 kids at a time there.

So we were lucky to find this place. It's just outside town, which is partly why it's so affordable. It would be great to have affordable daycare just down the street, but driving 15 minutes to a quality daycare we can actually afford is worth it.

My only real concern is that she won't get enough floor time. At home she spends most of her time on the floor, and she really demands it now. She is liking her bouncy seat less and less. She isn't big on being held, or being strapped into a seat at all, she wants to crawl around. But she requires constant attention when she's on the floor because she moves so fast now. So I don't think you could watch her on the floor while simultaneously watching 4 or 5 other kids.

We'll find out how it went in a couple of hours!