October 07, 2005

Good help is hard to find

I've been spending the last couple of weeks looking for daycare for Elliot. I am not really looking forward to going back to work and leaving him with someone else all day, but it has to be done. Gary and I already decided we were more interested in home care, which is a smaller scale daycare (usually no more than 6 kids) run in someone's home. They are usually cheaper than daycare centers, and can provide a lot more flexibility in terms of hours and activities. The downside is that if the daycare provider is sick, there often isn't anyone to back her up. A friend recommended Craig's List as a good place to find daycares, so this is where I started.

My first searches were on the Peninsula; the idea was that we would send him someplace in between Gary's office (in Menlo Park) and my office (in South SF). Most daycares have pretty strict pick-up times (and often bill as much as a dollar a minute after hours), so finding a place close to work seemed ideal. Several friends recommended instead we look for a place closer to home. After all, they said, you never know where you'll be working in a year or two (true enough, since my company is moving to San Francisco in December). I looked at two places over there, one in Redwood City, the other in Foster City.

The first place, in RC, was awful. The house was dark, and the area for the kids to play in was small. There were 4 or 5 kids there; some were watching a movie on tv, others were running around. The primary caregiver wasn't there (she had to go to the doctor with her son for an emergency), but her helper was. The scene was overall pretty chaotic, and I would be worried if I left Elliot there that he would get lost in the shuffle. The helper was big on formula, and didn't seem too thrilled with having to deal with breastmilk. The place also smelled too perfumey, which wasn't a huge deal, but I just didn't feel comfortable there.

I was pretty upset when I got home. I worried that all the daycares would be like this, and that I would never find one I felt comfortable in. I quit searching for a few days, thinking I would leave my job and stay home with Elliot for a year, or at least until he was ready to stand up for himself a bit. Gary convinced me that even if I didn't go back to work, it was still a good idea to send him to a daycare at least part time, so he could meet other kids and have a change of scenery. I agreed, and started looking again.

Daycare #2 was in Foster City, and was a huge relief. The area for the kids was spacious and airy, and the two kids I saw there were well behaved and calm. Immediately I felt better about sending Elliot to daycare. The biggest problem was location. While Foster City is on the way to work for me, it's not particularly close to Gary's work (and not on the way home for him). And I wasn't thrilled with the TV playing in the corner, although I could see that this wasn't the main activity most of the time.

I started doing a lot more research into daycares at this point. I contacted the 4Cs in San Mateo and Alameda counties (4Cs stands for Child Care Coordinating Council; they are public organizations that help parents find daycare) to get daycare referrals. Most of the places I called didn't have openings, and those that did weren't accepting children as young as Elliot. I went back to Craig's List, this time looking for places near Fremont.

Daycare #3 is run by a friendly Hispanic woman, S. Although her home wasn't as nice as the place in Foster City, S had more space dedicated to the daycare. Instead of a TV she had music playing, and she was completely fine with breastmilk instead of formula. Of the 5 kids currently in her daycare, 3 of them had been there for over 2 years, and their parents really like how S runs the daycare. Of all the places I looked at, this was the cheapest, too, so I know S isn't just doing this for the money.

Daycare #4 was a bit too sterile for me, although nothing compared to #5. The woman who runs the place was friendly and held Elliot while I asked her questions, so I could see she was comfortable with babies. The daycare space, although clean, was just not very interesting.

Daycare #5 was probably the creepiest one of all. My first hint that it was not the place for Elliot was when I was welcomed by the woman in charge (I'll call her K). She was wearing a nice black sweater, with rhinestone star-shaped buttons. The buttons looked sharp, and I doubt any kid would want to be close to her. The feeling was probably mutual, as she never offered to hold Elliot the entire time we were there, even though he was awake, alert, and quite happy. While touring her home we walked past the eating area, where an assistant was feeding the current daycare kids. A little Chinese girl was sitting on a regular chair, her eyes just barely above the top of the table. I felt really bad for her, and surprised that there were no high chairs or booster seats. K has a big backyard, paved with special tiles that don't heat up when the sun shines on them. But, no toys for the kids to play on (not a big deal since she only has 30 minutes of playtime scheduled each day anyway). She just got her daycare license a few months ago, so she doesn't have many kids, yet. But she's hoping to have up to 14 kids, and eventually expand the business to multiple locations. So, although it's home care, it had the feeling of a commercial daycare center. The $25 application fee gave me that feeling, too. One of the things I worry about is that Elliot will just be left in his carseat or playpen all day, with no one paying attention to him. Of all the daycares I saw, this one struck me as that sort of place.

This morning I called up daycare #3 and asked if we could leave Elliot there for 2 half-days next week, as a sort of trial run. S agreed. I get 12 hours away from Elliot, and Elliot gets 12 hours of a new environment. I am nervous (really nervous), but I think it's a good decision.

Posted by Jen at October 7, 2005 12:10 PM
Comments

You're going to be terrified leaving him the first time, wherever it is. But he'll survive, and you'll get used to it.


Posted by: Jessica at October 8, 2005 03:26 PM

I still think the solution is to find him a job. If you stay home for the next year or 18 months, you can teach him to program. Get him a BlackBerry or something with a tiny keyboard, that can fit on the tray of a high chair.

If your company can accommodate a blind programmer, setting up a workstation for an infant should be easy. He'll be eating solid foods by then.

Voil?! (Or as we Raimis say, viola!) Day care problem solved -- and he can save up for graduate school at the same time!

Posted by: Jessica at October 9, 2005 10:55 AM

He'll be happy--especially as he gets older. When you were 14 months old, you attended a half-day "play group" at the east side YWCA--twice a week. You used to cry when I came to pick you up!! You wanted to go every day, but that was reserved for older kids (and families with bigger nursery school budgets!).

You'll all be just fine!

Love, Mom

Posted by: Mom at October 11, 2005 02:55 AM

Probably the last thing you need is more advice-here's my 2 cents (which is probably not even worth that) but let the Mama lion instincts kick in-go with what you feel and make it nonnegotiable!

Posted by: NM at October 11, 2005 12:00 PM