Well, I didn't ever get around to blogging about the beginning of our daycare experiment... but I guess I can just summarize it at the end! I signed up the girls for a few mornings of daycare, so that Bella can go to parent & tot activities on the mornings that Natalie is there and giving Natalie a few mornings of Mommy time. (Well, one glorious morning I scheduled 4 hours to be able to do things like go get a haircut... which I have never gotten around to doing yet, by the way.)
A few things I learned during our month long experiment...
1) Nothing is open at 8am... unless you want to go to McDonald's or Target. I scheduled the girls from 8am until noon to try to avoid interrupting Bella's nap schedule, however I failed to realize that the only hours I would really be able to get anything actually DONE "errand wise" would be between 10am and noon... which doesn't leave much time when it takes upwards of 20-30 minutes to get back to the daycare location.
2) People ARE NOT joking, when they say your kids are going to be sick constantly after enrolling daycare. We've tried out daycare for a month, and my kids have pretty much been sick off & on... for a month. Bella has had the worst of it, more because I think she's in that age category where all the kids are sharing and licking every thing that they do share... ick.
3) Getting two kids ready and out the door in the morning is a hassle, not fun, and just generally... something I do not enjoy. (So if this was an experiment to see if me going back to work full-time was a possibility on the horizon, which it might have partially been... that is a giant no-go.)
4) On a positive note, I do really enjoy surprise artwork, made by little feet at daycare.
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| Natalie's first artwork masterpiece |
So overall... it is just turning out that the original schedule I put together is not for us. Daycare is a valuable resource for parents that chose to or have to work part-time or full-time, and I applaud everyone that gets one or more children up and out the door every day to be somewhere on time... it is a chore. Especially with a little one in the 2 year old category! For now, I believe we will be chalking this up as a learning experience and dropping our schedule down from four mornings a week (which just seemed like too much), to two mornings a week. Which means that only Natalie will attend while Bella does some activities, and Bella will be forgoing her "school days" for now...
That's my plan right now to try to make it more manageable. Once Natalie starts chewing on everything, we shall see how it changes from there... It may realistically end up being zero days at that point. Mommy doesn't like having sick babies. At least through all of the sickness of the past month, they still have both stayed adorable.
