Ready or Not

Ready or not, here he comes. Aidan will be starting daycare part-time in November when Kyle starts hockey. I initially fought tooth and nail against this switch. Why pay for Aidan to nap? Do they even do fun learning activities in the afternoon? I know Aidan will love playing with other kids, but I have a mental block against daycare. Kyle made me realize that we don't have a whole lot of options, and it's only 15 hours a week from mid-November through the end of February, minus 2 weeks off at Christmas and any other days off that I have from school.

Kyle and Aidan visited our local KinderCare on Thursday afternoon during nap time to see how it works. This is the same center I visited last spring with Aidan when we were looking into daycare. The center was well-kept, clean, and bright. I was concerned Aidan wouldn't sleep and they would try to make him nap for 3 hours on a mat. For those of you that know him, he is not a quiet or inactive child. Kyle said when they were there a little boy wasn't napping and they had an adult quietly reading a story with him. That made me feel better. They also do not nap for 3 hours. More like an hour and a half to two hours. When they wake up, the kids that are only part-time get to do the crafts and stuff that the other kids did in the morning, and the morning kids get free choice time.

Okay, I'm starting to feel a little better about this. Aidan will be going 3 afternoons a week from 11am-4pm. The bonus is that Aidan's teacher is the mom of a goalie that Kyle has coached for several years. It must be fate. She knows Kyle, we'll see her at hockey games, she can't abuse my child, right? And, since we know someone that works there, we get 3 weeks free of daycare. Double bonus. (I asked Kyle if we could use those 3 weeks after the new baby arrives so I can transition from being a mommy of 1 to a mommy of 2) The downside is that Aidan is going to have a snotty nose all winter from the new germs he will be coming into contact with. Yuck.