Daycare Dilemma

Last weekend, we all piled in the car (me, Joe, his parents, and Nash) and headed over to Orlando so I could show them how amazing Chipotle is.  His family is considering buying a franchise, or some other kind of business, so they are shopping around ideas.  I immediately said, "you should put a Chipotle in Brevard County!" 

Since they had never been to one, we faced the hour drive to get some delicious burritos and bowls.  The verdict:  they liked it!  Then we had to decide what else we were going to do since we couldn't just drive to Orlando for food.  So we headed across the street to the mall to get some ice cream and walk around.

We knew Nash needed some time to run since he was cooped up in the car, then cooped up in the high chair, then in his stroller, so we located the Kid Zone on the directory and popped on over.  What happened next can only be described as unbelieveable. 

Waiting his turn at the slide

Nash was beside himself with joy.  He was running around, screaming, squealing, talking to kids, running back and forth to take turns on the slide.  It was just so awesome to watch my little man be so completely happy.  We laughed, took pictures, and just stood back and let him do his thing.

Chillin' in the spaceship

Leaning on Grandpop

Plopped himself in the middle of a house full of kids

Ecstatic

After we left, we decided it was time to put him in daycare.  We've been using his parents, my mom, and our next door neighbor Susie to watch him for the few hours that Joe is at work...and all that has been working out fine.  But he never gets the chance to socialize...so it's time we left him mingle with his people.

So, we met up Thursday at lunch to check out this place that I found online.  They had a really great website, good prices, and were open extra late.  Not to mention, they took drop ins, like if something came up, or you just wanted to go out to dinner or whatever.  Flexibility!  We dropped in to see what it was like on the inside and nearly stopped dead in our tracks.

It was awful.  Dirty.  Smelly.  Too many kids.  Kids with snot crusted to their faces.  Caregivers I would not ever think to leave my kids with. Good god...what have I gotten myself into?!  I'm not exaggerating, as I know one would expect a mother to be overly critical of those she expects to take her place, but seriously.  It was bad.  We spent five minutes there and said our goodbyes.  I quickly promised Nashie I would never leave him at a place like that.

So, now we are back at square one.  We need a daycare.  I want to enroll him in this Montessori school that seems really great, but he has to be 18 months old.  So, we were thinking we'd do just a day or two a week at a normal daycare until then, but definitely not that one.