Daycare update

9 months, 16 days old

Now that we are a month + into our new daycare, I thought it was time for an update.

I love it.

Now, coming from someone who wants nothing more than to stay home, using the L-word is pretty big but it's true. The place is great. I know I mentioned before that it wasn't that I hated his other school, I just didn't really like it. His old school had availability when we needed it and his current school did not. We were on the wait list for a very long time until a spot finally opened up where he is now.

I realize what I'm about to say is very judgmental but his old teacher was not very.... put together. She had a tramp stamp that I saw many times and was um..busty. (Can you not put away the cleavage while I'm dropping off my kid?) Yes, she was nice enough but I always felt like there was this judgey attitude especially when it came to breastfeeding. (B was the only one out of 9 in his class who was on breast milk.) I'm also a control freak about documentation of things. Part of her job was to document what he ate, when he ate it, when he slept and other notes of the day. Half the time his sheet was barely filled out and when I asked her about it, she would play it off and tell me the bits of information (which I fully believe she made up off the top of her head to appease me.) There were also 4 infant rooms in this large daycare. Any given day, if a teacher was absent, he would shift to various other infant rooms. While this isn't a huge deal, I really would have preferred he stay in one place to keep some consistency. Overall, he was cared for so I shouldn't complain but I didn't hesitate when Daycare #2 called saying they had a spot open up for us.

Moving on...

I'll start off by talking about his current teachers. They are all fantastic. There are four throughout the day that are in charge of his classroom. Again, with the judgyness but they are all cute and bubbly and fun and PLAY with the kids. At this place, there is only one infant room with 10 kids total (6 girls: Charley, Ava, Finley, Haylee, Lola and Mia; 4 boys: Sean, Zach, Brayden and B). So this means that he is in the same room with the same teachers, every day. While our old place was only about a 5 minute drive from my work, this is only a 5 minute drive from our house. Therefore, a short commute for Bubs and very little time in the car. I like this (although it was nice for him to be close to my work in case of emergency.) This also means that his current classmates will likely be his classmates when he gets into real school. A big bonus for us.

Another great feature of the new place is that they have locked doors at all times and each parent has their own individual access code. We have to check in on a computer every morning and check out every evening. Also, I've never once had to ask for his daily sheet report. The teacher always makes sure to give it to me while telling me personally about his day. Communication is so much better here. More perks? Tuesdays are music day where the school brings in a special instructor to sing songs and play with instruments. Wednesdays, during the summer months, are for water play. There is a huge playground with grass as well as rubber mulch and they take the kids on walks whenever weather permits. I also really like that late in the day, they have a few high school boys who help with outdoor supervision for the big kids which is nice coming from a parent of a boy. He's around girls all the time, it will be nice to have some more males around.

So overall, we're really happy. Barrett is so independent and loves going there. He gives me the biggest smile when we get out of the car because he knows he gets to see his friends soon. I can put him down and he hardly gives me a second look before I leave.

Like I said, I love it.