Week 15_Spencer's Turn

Yeah, I know it has been weeks since we have blogged. Our apologies but we have been a bit busy. What have we been doing? Touring every daycare within 20 miles of our house that's what. So, you may be wondering why we are looking for a daycare for a kid that hasn't been born yet. Apparently, although I can get a handgun in three days, the waiting list for daycare in Atlanta is a year long. Seriously, whatever happened to the law of supply and demand? You would think if there is a one year wait list for daycare people would be falling all over themselves to open new daycares.

So, we have now toured a number of daycares, each with a name like "Sunshine House" or "Bright Horizons". I guess the names are designed to convince parents that their kids will have a better than average chance to succeed in life if they would only send them to that daycare. If the name really does have that big of an impact on the kids future prospects, I think I know a lot of people who attended "Mediocre Prospects Day School" and even a couple who went to "God's Wasted Effort Christian Academy."

So what do you look for when taking a tour of a daycare? I haven't a clue. At the first few, I tried to concentrate and ask serious, well thought out questions about how the faculty and staff would nurture the mind & soul of our offspring. However, by the third tour I had thrown in the towel. They all looked the same and the tour guides all gave the same chirpy answers. So, I chose a new tactic and am now simply trying to concentrate not on picking the right daycare, but on not picking the wrong daycare. Here are a few things I look for when trying to weed out a daycare:

1) No open vats of acid. ANYWHERE.
2) There should be no doors bearing the sign "The Pain Cave"
3) It is not good if you overhear a teacher calling a child "the nappy headed one"
4) During nap time, kids should not have to resort to covering themselves in paper towels due to a blanket shortage
5) There should not be a fleet of television camera trucks stationed in the parking lot reporting on a "developing story"
6) One of the extracurricular activities should not be called "Fight Club"
7) It is a bad sign if one of the kids offers me two juice boxes and some fingerpaints for a pack of smokes
8) Nobody named Claude should be on the staff. Very common serial killer name.

There are other things one should look for of course but this is just a guide. Next week we are checking into "The Mama Don't Leave Me Here School". Wish us luck. Hopefully by the time our kid enters second grade we will be notified that he/she has been accepted into a daycare.