I’m sitting with my feet up in my new living room with boxes scattered around and my darling husband talking to the TV about NFL draft picks. I’m deliriously tired and deliriously happy.  We almost didn’t get to move in because of idiot underwriters’ contract mistakes and slow bank workers, but we’re here.  This week I’ve felt stretched very thin between demands at work and the demands of moving, but we made it.  I keep looking around in disbelief that we are finally here.

We cried when we left the old house for the last time thinking of all the memories in that house.  It’s funny, just a few days later it feels right to be here. Let the new memories begin…

We’ve been practicing our grunting and bridge guarding.  I think Charlotte would be a pretty cute troll.  You know, like the early nineties collectibles we enjoyed.  Aw!  Here she is…

Now, if Greyson and I were trolls, we’d be gruesome doofuses like a Harry Potter troll.  Ew…

Why are we going to be trolls?  Oh, because since we’ve sold our house we have no where to live.  Surely we’ll doomed to live under a bridge somewhere and be a troll family.

Seriously.  We’ve made offers on three houses.  Two have fallen through and we remain in limbo with the third.  I’m starting to think a mossy bridge over a sparkling stream would be lovely.  But, then I remember we’d probably end up under a highway overpass with some smack addicts and I continue my MLS Google searches.  Well, as long as it’s an overpass near a good elementary school it might work.

You know when you get one of those phone calls, one that you don’t expect and definitely don’t want?  Yeah, I got one today.  I was on the way to work after dropping Charlotte off at daycare.  Greyson called.  When I saw the phone I assumed it was something about the house or the dog, maybe a reminder that I was picking Charlotte up this afternoon.  Nope.

He said, “Hey, listen.  I’m having really bad chest pains and I feel really lightheaded.  I’m going to call 911.”

What?  This is a man who in the 9 years I have known him has had a flu-like illness twice, a handful of colds he gets over within 3 days and a 12 hour stomach bug.  I knew it had to be serious.  The numbers 9-1-1 came out of his mouth.

I turned the corner, headed home and called work.  I walked in the door and saw my husband hooked up to an EKG machine and two EMT’s with him.  He was so pale.  His EKG was normal but the paramedics recommended he go to the hospital.

This was how we spent our day.

I watched the man I love lay pale and exhausted in a little hospital bed.  I laid my head on his shoulder and we watched some Netflix on his phone to kill the time between blood work and heart stress tests.  I said little prayers and touched his forehead and face.

Hours later it was all okay.  He was released and told to follow up with his physician next week.  They don’t know what caused his chest pains.  A “cardiac event” or a muscular thing?  They aren’t sure.

Regardless, it scared us.  It scared us into making some changes.  The last time we left that hospital we had our newborn baby in tow.  That is the only reason we want to go back there.

Here’s to healthier changes.

#@&*!  I have the worst #$&^*#$ head cold I have ever had in my entire %&#$*&@ life.  Ahh!

Why all the cursing?  Well, one for thing I feel terrible and I can’t breathe through my nose.  But, really I’m cussing up a storm because it’s Fat Tuesday.  I need to get it out of my system.  For Lent I’m giving up cuss words.  Yep, our darling girl is getting into the repeating phase.  Greyson and I mean well, but we let the foul language fly on many an occasion.  In his mind, what else is he supposed to say when a running back fumbles the ball?

I give you a football watching quote from my better half: “You #$&^*#$,  %*&&^, hold on to the God #@*&#$ ball!

Pretty bad, huh?  Yeah, I’m not much better when my Internet connection is slow or I drop an armload of something I should have taken in two trips. You get the idea.

It’s not just the repeating.  Charlotte is also saying “Was dat?” to everything she sees and “Was dat?” whenever we say a new word she doesn’t recognize.  I imagine phrases like the ones above would be repeated eagerly followed by a “Was dat?”

I thought about a swear jar where we have to put in money every time we say a cuss word, but that $%*# is expensive.  So, I figure a good start would be this solemn six week observance.  We’re not Catholic, but I figure the Holy Father would approve.

$%*&!  That’s right!  The Pope quit!  ::sigh::  I guess we’ll do it anyway.  That way maybe our kid won’t have a mouth so foul it needs to be stuffed with King Cake.

Back in the day when we were kids, I think  “daycare” was somehow a bad word.  It was sort of like “Oh!  You go to DAYCARE?!  Your mom has to work?!  Are you poor?”    I thought of daycare as a place where a woman in curlers and a bathrobe kept kids fenced in her front yard with rusty old playground equipment while she went through a pack of Salem Lights.  That was before she took the dirty children inside to watch “The Young and the Restless.”   This of course, is my misguided perception.  I’m sure there were many quality daycare centers 30 years ago.

Now it’s like,  “Where do your kids go to daycare?  Oh, really?  They don’t?  Well they won’t be ready for kindergarten if you don’t start newborn baby curriculum!  We’re at Yuppie & Hipster Montessori.  We pay twice our mortgage payment every month to send the kids there, but it was important for us to have Jasper and Kinsley in a full-time Mandarin immersion program.”

I had a babysitter during the day when I was little, then my mom stayed home when my little sister was born.  Mom went back to her career when my sister went to kindergarten.

I’ve had some readers and friends ask me recently about how I found Charlotte’s daycare and why we go there.  The short answer?  That’s where we were able to get in when I had to go back to work after maternity leave.  We like her school.  I’m really glad she’s there.  It was a great decision for us.

Waiting Lists– In a previous post about giving advice to pregnant women, I mentioned you have to get on the waiting list at a daycare, pronto!  Like, in your second trimester.  We were on the waiting lists at five different schools.  It was $150 fee to get on the waiting list.  You can kiss that money good-bye.  You don’t get it back.  I toured each of these and got absolutely no guarantee from any of them that she was in until after she was born.  Quality infant classes are tough to get into.

Stars- In North Carolina there is a Star Rated License program.  I’m sure many states have similar licensing programs.  To me, it seems like sort of a crock.  Why?  It’s just really confusing, first of all.  Secondly, you get one star if you meet state standards.  So, any other stars are ones the schools apply for.  Huh?  I have friends who sent their kids to a “Five Star” facility and were very unhappy when they discovered some unsanitary practices being covered up.  They said they were fooled by the shiny, pretty new building.  Also, your school could meet state requirements with one star, but then have a bunch of other accredidations instead of the stars.  You just have to check into it.

Don’t get me wrong, I think stars are important, but a lot of it has to do with the amount of education the teachers have.  A lot of Charlotte’s teachers are in school, have Associate’s Degrees in Early Childhood Education and are working on their bachelor’s degrees.  They are just young.  Others may not have gone to college, but have been in childcare facilities for decades and have great experience working with children.  Their schooling automatically knocks the  star rating down even though they are awesome teachers.

Charlotte’s school has three stars.  This stressed me out and made me feel like a terrible parent for awhile until I looked into the system some more and realized the relatively insignificant things that bumped up the rating for a facility.  I think you have to take the ratings with a grain of salt.  By-the-way, my personal research into price showed very little difference in tuition prices for schools with 3 to 5 stars.  Oh, and religious-based schools just have to meet a state compliance standard and don’t have to do anything with stars if they don’t want to.  Again, take the stars with a grain of salt.

Programs- I like the variety of things they offer.  Charlotte’s school has a pool with swimming lessons starting at a certain age,  gymnastics, theatrical performances and art.  I do wish there was more foreign language, but they do some Spanish lessons now that she’s in the Two’s Class.  I seriously couldn’t believe it when I got her first “Report Card” when she was like, 5 months old.  They discussed how Charlotte was doing with Infant Curriculum.  Huh?  For real?  Yep, they assessed how she was holding up her head, doing tummy time, responding to her teacher’s facial expressions and other baby milestones.  It cracked me up.

Now Charlotte will come home and put her head on the ground while lifting her leg.  When we ask her what she’s doing she says, “I do Yoga!”  Yes, they offer Yoga and Zumba for toddlers.  I keep thinking, “Yoga, Zumba, afternoon naps with classical music and snacks?  Um.  I wanna be in daycare!”

Food- We chose a school that offers a menu.  I figured if we paid this much, the price better include feeding my kid.  There are some places you have to pack their lunch everyday.  There is no way we are going pack her lunch everyday.  I will when she’s in elementary school so she can experience the “lunchbox novelty” and I won’t stress over public school food.

I was worried about the school menu until I looked at it.  At her school they include veggies, fruit and whole grains in every meal.  Um, yeah.  That’s often better than what she gets at home.  At first I didn’t like tater tot Fridays once a month, but then I realized it will be almost impossible to raise a child who has never tasted a tot.  The school menu made us branch out with what we feed our daughter.  She ate taco salad at school and decided she loved it.  Huh?  I never would have guessed that if it weren’t for the school food.

I also think this is where positive peer pressure comes in.  Her teachers said kids who may not eat veggies at home tend to eat them when the whole class is chowing on some green beans.

Socialization– Every kid cries sometimes when their parents drop them off at daycare.  It’s inevitable.  But, I’ve noticed a bit of a trend.  The kids who started daycare at 18 months or 2 years seem to cry a lot when my kid doesn’t even know that I’m gone.  Charlotte and most of her friends have been there since they were 3 months old.  They know we’re coming back.  They also know the toys in the classroom are super cool and they don’t have all these playmates at home.

So that is why  and how we chose our daycare.  I’m am seriously not an expert on this.  What did I miss?  How did you choose your childcare?  What do you like about your daycare?