Day Care Part 1

So it is inevitable.  Avery will have to go to day care.  I had a good cry about it this morning.  I decided to start my research with a blanket "day care in sf" search on google.  I found one in my neighborhood that looked like it would be interesting.  After I clicked around on the site for a few minutes I noticed they had photos of their space.  As soon as I clicked and saw a room full of cheap looking playpen type cribs in rows I broke down in tears.  I called my husband hysterical, scared the daylights out of him (he thought something was wrong with Miss A) and told him about my findings.  He promptly told me to calm down and that we would not send Avery somewhere that made me cry just at the sight of it.  So went the start of my search for day care.

But, this afternoon I am feeling much different.  Why?  Because I got smart.  I sent out an email to friends, family and families at the school I teach at asking for recommendations.  Within an hour a parent emailed me back with a name and a number.  I immediately called and left a message with a woman named Elaine.  Within hours she called me back.  She did NOT have any openings for infants, but she was a wealth of information!!  She gave me names and numbers of small family childcare places, as well as of nannies.  She also said she would email me standard information I should be armed with as I start to look into day care for Avery.  When I hung up the phone, Avery, who was eating while I chatted with Elaine, was smiling at me and I finally felt like this will be doable.

So far my advice for researching day care, if you must, is to send out an email to people you know and trust, asking for their recommendations.  It makes sense right?  Next step is to make more phone calls with Elaine's recommendations and cross my fingers that we find someone we love!  To be continued...