New Day Care

Well, on our way home from Grafton on Sunday, we got the phone call from Frog's Day Care Trisha saying she was in the hospital having a baby. All but 6 hours later, she had a baby girl! 16 days early. No awesome day care options arranged. We had several people willing to take her and watch her for us, but when it came time to make the decision on Sunday night, we decided a day care close to Mike's work or close to me in Farmington were the only two options that we were willing to do for just a few weeks.

I found a great day care, with availability for drop-in and weekly visits, awesome rates, great classrooms, and a fellow co-worker sends her son (soon to be sons) there! So, for the next few weeks while Trisha recovers and adjusts to life with a newborn, Quinn will have new friends to play with at a new day care. They supply diapers & wipes and encourage potty training every 2 hours! There will be 4-6 other toddlers in the room with her, mostly younger, but just as talkative (I heard several stories for the 5 minutes I spent in the room). They try to get the kids out every day, but I can totally understand if it's only a few times a week as it's well below freezing most days and handling 6 toddlers to get clean, fed, dressed, napped and taught and bundled appropriately ... wow and then getting them all outside to play. Yikes...well...that's why I'm not a day care provider!! I can handle my toddler (most days)...adding any to the mix is fun (like the other night when I watched Ted after a full day at work!!).

What else about day care...they offer breakfast, lunch and snacks. They have structured time to do art, read, sensory tables, and other activities. Nothing different that what Trisha does there. But, they have cameras set up so if I get time (ha ha) at work, I can check in on how she's doing and what's going on for a few minutes every day. Secured entrance with key entry or buzzer.

And it's almost half the price of anything closer to home, so she'll still get to commute with Mama every day to Farmington!

My only concern is that she won't get the naps she's used to (going on 2 hours here now) and she'll sleep on a cot instead of a 4-sided "cage"! :) It'll be nice as we plan to transition her to a toddler bed (cross fingers) this weekend when her new room is all painted and decorated. The snow last night put a damper on getting more done in her room, but having today home from work has slightly chipped away at the details. Maybe it's for the best as she crawled out of her crib yesterday for the first time ever when Mike tried to put her down for a nap! Injury-free thank God!

It will be nice to see the difference between a "center" care and her "at home" care that she's been getting. She gets LOTS of one-on-one time at home and Trisha's, but when we go to Gym class and playgrounds and such, she could seemingly care less if I'm around or not. She seems to enjoy the other kids and teachers that surround us. SO, we'll see how the rest of the week goes. I think Quinn will enjoy her time, but we may be anxious to get back to Trisha's, too! I'm still not sure if I'll keep her at Trisha's all four days or if we'll split time between the center and Trisha's or if we'll keep Trisha at all. We'll see what Quinn wants and how she handles the next few weeks. :) OH, and Grandpa R may still be coming up from Grafton next week to watch her for a few days, so that'll put a nice twist on it all too! :)

Trisha's baby! They had a girl, 6lbs6oz, 19", 6pm-ish on Jan 31st. Charlee Catherine. I'm soo excited to meet her! I'll probably stop by after work next week...maybe with Q to see how she is around a newborn ... that could be a reason to keep her from Trisha's for awhile longer too!!

OH, and potty training! Q's in pull-ups and diapers...but the diapers fall apart,tabs fall off...from how many times she wants on and off the potty. Last night she said..."Mama, Elmo Potty Time" so she sat on the potty and I read. About 1 page into the book, I smell...

"Quinn, did you go poopy?"

"aaawwwhhh!!!! MAMA POOP IN POTTY!!!!"
and she just GIGGLES like mad. Then she insisted on going on the big potty...and farted a little more. It was awesome hearing her giggle. I could tell she was as shocked and gratified as I was! I told her should could have a treat for making it to the potty in time.

"Quinn, what would you like for a treat?"

"uhmmm, GYM CLASS!"

SO, we did some tumbling, but we also went to gym class this morning (as we have 2 make-ups to do anyway). She loves that class and running and jumping and swinging and she's SO much better at following what the teacher is doing with exercises and practice moves. It's crazy how much she's learned and developed the last few months. I can't believe how much more I notice it when I'm not with her all day long!

She knows almost all her colors and shapes accurately; recently learning pentagon and octagon (which she insists on calling the "police stop sign octagon"). She knows the number 2 and number 8 by sight (odd choices, but whatever). We're working on letter recognition too...she knows Q. That's something else they will do at day care too. A number and letter of the week.

Oh what else has changed? Everything is "do it self". But when given her pull up to "do self" she wanted her "diaper back!". We'll see how that transition goes!

As for now, time to continue her room and getting stuff cleaned up. I'm not quite sure how the house gets so messy when we're barely here...but whatever. I'll blame the cats! :)