It's a Zoo in Here

After the good news mid-September, the next few weeks I had a renewed energy flowing through me.  I had a happy bounce in my every step.  Just two weeks later we started looking at daycares.  I'd heard the good ones filled up fast and some had waiting lists, so I figured lining up some to look at around 15 weeks along would be far enough in advance that we'd find the perfect one with lots of time to spare.  Little did I know this process would take much longer than anticipated. 

I scheduled several facility visits within a two week timeframe, so I could start to get a feel for what I'm getting into.  The first place ended up being too far from home & work and too costly, but super nice.  The second one was right by home and seemed like a decent choice since it was in our budget and seemed small classroom sizes and friendly teachers.  There were quite a few after that initial day that we visited, but all had some pro's and con's to each.  Some we called didn't even have spots available until August 2011 - two months past the end of my maternity leave (estimated return was early June).  The last day I had scheduled some facility visits, Matt decided to join me on a spontaneously, unannoucement visit to a place near home.  This daycare had reasonable costs and a good location, so we both thought 'what's the catch?'  Upon arriving, we were greeted and taken into the infant room...OMG it was like a zoo in there!  There literally were 30 babies and like 4 women tending to them all.  One lady was feeding a baby and bouncing two others in bouncey chairs with each foot.  There were babies crying in high chairs, activity centers and cribs.  I immediately became overwhelmed.  I'm sure that some families can't afford to have daycare facilities that cost 2/3 of their monthly mortgage payment either, but I just couldn't see this being a safe haven for my little angel.  We reluctantly, and forcefully grinning, toured the rest of the facility all the way through Pre-K classes.  The other classes there were more structured and kids are much more independent as toddlers, but PHEW those poor babies didn't get as much nurturing and loving attention as I would've liked in the infant room.  No zoo for us - cute as it may sound.

We started wondering if this was it.  Would we have to settle for sub-par to our expectations simply because it fits into our budget?  Matt decided to post a facebook message to see if anyone could send some daycare references our way.  A friend of ours' wife worked for a state agency that had the resources we were looking for.  She sent us the GA Bright Starts website, which tracked all daycare facilities and in-home providers that were licensed through the state and showed all of their inspection results.  YAHTZEE, we were about to explore a whole other avenue of options.  She highly recommended in-home providers if we could find one close and without any serious inspection violations.  We drilled down to a very few through the search engine that met our standards, and so we began calling to set up interviews and hoping they might have a spot.  Two ladies we interviewed in person ended up being wonderful, so at that point we knew we'd go with the in-home route.  One household had minimum play area outside and the other provider had an early pick of time of 5:30pm (anyone who knows about public accounting, knows the pick up time issue would be brutal during tax season).  We ended up getting the one summer 2011 opening with the provider who closes earlier.  I figured it was worth the sacrafice to have our daughter be able to enjoy the outdoors when weather permitted next summer and fall.  Plus Miss Lynda (the provider we selected) was great and got exceptional feedback from her references! 
http://hugga-bear.moonfruit.com/

It was still a long ways off, but in early December we sent her our first month's payment as deposit.  I couldn't be more relieved that hurdle was behind us.  Now if I could only book this daycare too: