Last winter, John and I started looking into suitable daycare options for Cally. We were already on the waiting list at the UVM Childcare Center (we'd put our name on that list as soon as we found out I was pregnant), but the odds of getting in were pretty low. We got a tip about a friend of a friend who lives nearby and loved the situation, but found out that the woman was aready maxed out with the number of infants she could watch. One of the options we looked into was in the basement of a ballet school, our conversation with the director was constantly interupted by the thumping of ballerinas upstairs and there were few windows. Another place that we visited told us that they only brought the kids outside when it is "nice" out and had the T.V. blaring in the background....... We quickly realized that this search was not going to be easy.Upon my return to work, while John was home with Cally on his paternity leave, my principal mentioned that she had an au pair from Germany for her kids 14 years ago. Meike (pronounced Mi-cah) had met her husband while here and stuck around. She has since had three kids of her own and has had her own in-home daycare. It just so happens that she isn't doing the whole daycare thing anymore, but she does take on one child to watch along with her own. One of her daughters is in first grade, the other is four years old, and the youngest, her son is two months older than Cally. The one child she had been watching for the last five years is going to kindergarten this fall, so she was going to have one opening. Last April we toured her house and talked about the way she runs things and immediately felt like this could be an excellent fit. She gave us the names of a few of the parents whose kids had been with her in the past and it turns out that I know one of the families because the parents work in my school district. A few days later we ran into them at the grocery store and they told us we'd be crazy not to grab the opening because Meike had been absolutely wonderful with their children.
And so, a few weeks ago, Cally started visiting Meike and her family. The two of us visited for an hour one day and then she spent a few half days on her own before I started school. The next week she spent three days with the crew and since then she's doing her regular four-day week (John's working from home on Thursdays, so she'll spend some quality time with him).
So far, we couldn't ask for a better set up. Cally is so happy there-- she loves the other kids (I think Nate, the son who is 10 pounds heavier than Cal, might be her first crush), she's taking great naps, eating really well, getting outside all the time, and learning a ton (within the first week she figured out how to clap, wave, and do the speed crawl). The only real problem is she isn't taking a bottle and only seems willing to drink milk out of a shot glass, of all things (a tip given to us by "Grandma Joyce", a professional Grandmother and nurse).
