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ADDICTED TO DAY CARE | PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When I found a red dot on 16-month-old Lily's belly, it was my day-care center I headed to, not my pediatrician. Chicken pox was "going around," and we'd already had one false alarm. My pediatrician doesn't like to see those highly contagious kids in her office, so her diagnosis was, "If she develops more spots and they itch, then it's chicken pox." Since we were throwing a party the next evening, I needed to know whether I had a contagious kid. Kathy, the day-care center director, stepped out of her office to do a quick confirmation in the hallway. She even told me how long the pox was going to last and what kind of calamine lotion to buy. My pediatrician tells me that even if Lily weren't in day care, she'd be catching all of these viruses eventually until she builds up her immunity. Fortunately, the place where she's catching them is also the place where lots of other kids are catching the same things. Now, for any illness, I call my day-care center first. "Yeah, that's going around," Kathy will often say. "It starts with a high fever, then maybe some vomiting. It lasts for about five days. We've got eight kids out now with it." Even my pediatrician can't give me information that specific. I keep Lily home four days a week. But even if I were with her seven, I wouldn't know as much about her as I've learned from talking to her day-care providers. She's my only child and few of my friends are parents, so I don't have much context to work with. But watching her play at day care, meeting her little pals and talking to the teachers clues me in to Lily's social and learning styles. When I recently started talking to pre-school directors, I could spout some convincing child-development-speak, such as, "she transitions well, interacts best in smaller groups and is very aware of her surroundings." If I kept her home for seven days a week, not only would I be crabby and professionally unfulfilled, but I doubt I'd come up with as much kid entertainment as the day care does. Every day in their huge play-space they make wonderful messes. One rainy day they made "mud" with cocoa powder, water and salt. They make "goop" with cornstarch and water, a miracle mixture that dries to an easily vacuumed dust. I know that babies and young toddlers learn a lot through touch, but I just can't bring myself to spread paint out on the kitchen floor for her to walk in. Or to let her smear colored whipped cream in her hair. I do manage to come up with a few play ideas, most of them sparked by looking around her schoolroom and studying what toddlers like to do. Those things I've learned about Lily are all important. But here's the real jewel in the crown for me: I don't have much patience, and I'm eternally thankful for the three days a week that Lily and I have apart. On Monday night, I happily anticipate packing her off to "school" on Tuesday morning -- three whole days of going to the bathroom alone! Three days of working on projects that I can control and complete! Three days of uninterrupted phone conversations with other adults! And then by Thursday night, I'm looking forward to spending Friday helping her make Play-Doh cookies or reading a new Babybug magazine. The time away refreshes me so that with her, I can be more patient, more reliable and more fun. And I'm not the only one who needs the break -- my husband and I spent 10 years together before we had the baby, and we still need time alone with each other. Several of our day-care providers moonlight, so we've never had to scramble for a reliable sitter, even when we've started calling around only a few days in advance. Whenever I've had a particularly busy work week, the center has cheerfully taken Lily for a few extra days. Don't get me wrong. There are a few flies in the ointment. When there was no space in the older-kid rooms, Lily was held back with smaller kids longer than she should have been. And when she was about 18 months old, we had The Potty Incident. At home, she had started using her beloved potty several times a day, staying dry and clean fairly often. She probably would have potty-trained in a week or two -- if the day-care center could have helped. But their child/teacher ratios didn't allow for someone to take Lily to the bathroom very often. She quickly lost interest and is back in diapers, even at home. But I know that the potty thing is only a matter of time, so I'll gladly trade a few poopy diapers for everything else I've gotten.
The full weight of what day care does for our little family hit home last
fall, when we spent two weeks in Europe. After three or four days of
chasing Lily through Venetian cafes, sharing a small hotel room and
gazing longingly into charming little shops filled with delicate blown
glass, I'd had enough of the "vacation." Travel-weary Lily quickly
turned into Velcro Baby and talked constantly about her day-care pals.
Trapped in the hotel room during her naps, I managed to scribble a
scarce few postcards. The first one I sent was to our day-care center. It
said, "We miss you, can't wait to get back."
Phaedra Hise is a contributing writer for Inc. Magazine and author of "Growing Your Business Online" (1996, Henry Holt). She frequently writes about business, technology and adventure travel for national magazines and newspapers. - - - - - - - - - - |
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