Adventures in Daycare

All along Brad and I have known we wanted Paige to go to The Neighborhood School. This is where Brad's cousin Jamie takes her daughter, Ella, and will be taking her son, Myles. I've toured the school and loved it since I walked in. Well, as I stated in a previous post, it takes a lot to get in and we know there is a chance it may not happen.

This past Friday it was my job to scope out the rest of the daycares in the area and come up with a back up plan. Plus, The Neighborhood School does not accept new children until August 1st and we need something starting in May.

The week before I picked up a local magazine at the doctor's office listing all of the daycares in the area. I was really pumped about going and seeing all of these and trying to become educated on daycares. I had mapped out which ones I was going to go to and was ready to hit the ground running. I also had my checklist in hand of things I was looking for (security, child to teacher ratio, curriculum for the older kids, etc.).

Stop #1 - close by the house, had a nice ad in the magazine. Strike 1 - big metal building. I almost didn't go in because of this but thought I better look because that was the point of the excursion. Strike 2 - no security what so ever. Strike 3 - the director did not tell me the ratio of kids to teacher for infants and it looked like there were more kids than there needed to be in the infant room. Strike 4 - no real rooms for the toddlers. They had these short "walls in the next room. These poor little kids didn't get cribs (when I thought they needed them), they got cots instead.

Stop #2 - well, after I found this place (had to drive around a little bit), I saw that it was a house in the ghetto of Daphne. I didn't even get out of the car for this one. Does this classify as a "stop"? This one was advertised as the "Harvard of Early Childhood Educations". I guess you could get a Harvard education in the ghetto, but I decided Paige is not.

Stop #3 - Kept on driving past this one too. It was house with 2 cars in the driveway. I have nothing against a house serving as the daycare but they advertised they took infants (6 wks) through preschool. You would think they would have more employees. If we couldn't find anything else, I would consider going in this house. It was in a fine part of Spanish Fort, I just didn't get a good feeling when driving by.

Stop #4 - I actually went in - mainly because it was a real building! This one is on the OK list, meaning Paige could go here for 2 months and I would be fine with that but I don't want her there forever. They had some security, not as much as I would like. For instance, the doors were locked most of the day but during prime drop off and pick up times the doors were unlocked. The director sat down and talked with me for a bit and explained the inner-workings of the daycare to me. I went ahead and put our name on the waiting list just in case - no money involved.

Stop #5 - Kept on driving past this one. Sketchy house with one car in the driveway on an even sketchier street.

This was where my adventure was supposed to end. I had already been to 2 other daycares (The Neighborhood School and one other before) so I thought I would have plenty to chose from and I thought I would totally worn out from getting out of the car so much and seeing the same things over and over again. Since I didn't have any success I thought I would try to find 2 others before going home.

Stop #6 - Must have driven past it and didn't feel like back-tracking to find it.

Stop #7 - Couldn't find this one at first and almost called it a day but then I found it and boy am I glad I did. This one is the Christ the King (Catholic church) Early Childhood Development Center. I thought it would cost too much or they wouldn't take non-Catholics but it is affordable, even as a non-Catholic. They have security - really double security (outside door and inside to get to the real daycare section), they have a good ratio of children to teachers, some of the teachers in the school even have degrees. They have most everything that The Neighborhood School seems to offer. There were parents there that looked happy and normal and the staff seemed normal and happy (as you can tell, I like normal and happy), so overall it was a good visit and is now at the top of the list of back-ups.

Who would have thought it would be so hard to find a good daycare?!?