Daycare Basics

**Disclaimer** This is certainly not the be-all and end-all guide to choosing a daycare provider! This info is based on my experience and is just an overview of a few of the options out there and how to get started on the process. **Disclaimer**

If you’re not a parent or parent-to-be and you don’t have friends with small children, you probably know nothing about daycare, and why would you? Selecting a daycare was the most stressful part of my pregnancy and that was with me being fairly informed going in. Here are some of the basics and some resources to get you going in your search.

What kind of care do you want/need?

I’m going to give some information on 2 basic types of childcare: a Daycare Center, and an In-Home Daycare Provider. There are other options such as nannies, au pairs, or having family or friends watch your children. We didn’t look into any of those options so I don’t have much to offer on those.

Centers (such as Celebree, The Goddard School, etc) usually take babies as young as 6 weeks old and the children are grouped into rooms according to age (and sometimes development). For example, your child might start out in the infant room (6 weeks – 9 months), then move to an older infant room (9 months – 18 months), then on to toddler rooms and pre-school rooms. These centers usually also offer before and after school care for school-aged children. There are usually set hours for a center (such as 6:30am-5:30pm).

In-Home Providers are people who care for children in their home. Home providers should be licensed by the state. The licensing requires a background check, some training, and routine inspections of the environment. Some providers aren’t licensed, so it’s a good thing to check on when you’re considering a provider. Usually an in-home provider will be 1-2 people caring for 6-8 children in their home. The ages of the children will vary by provider – some don’t take infants, some take babies as young as 6 weeks. In this setting, you usually have a small number of children of varying ages. In-home providers also usually have set hours, just like a center would.

Do you need full-time or part-time care?

Part-time infant care at a Center is pretty much not available. “Infants” are any children 2 and under. Maryland has a no crib-sharing law that means that if a daycare room has 6 cribs for infants and you only want to send your child to occupy that crib 3 days a week, they can’t put another baby in there on the days your baby isn’t there. So while you can send your baby only 3 days a week, you will still pay full price. Part-time care for toddlers and older children is usually available.

Part-time care for both infants and older children is more widely available for in-home care, though it will vary by provider.

How much does daycare cost?

In this area (Baltimore-Washington metro), daycare is EXPENSIVE. Like mortgage payment expensive. Well…maybe not quite that much but certainly more than a car payment. Daycare fees are usually charged weekly. The cost is higher for infants and generally goes down as the child gets older.

The centers we looked at ranged in cost from about $325-$360/week (and there were more expensive options, but we didn’t even look at them). So that’s about $1,500/month or $18,000/year. I know, it’s painful.

The in-home providers we looked at ranged in cost from about $165-$250/week with $200/week being pretty average. So that’s about $850/month or $10,000/year (I’m rounding and averaging here). It’s a price break over centers for sure, but still expensive.

If your child is sick or out of daycare for some reason, usually you still have to pay. Bill hated this concept, but you have to think of it like tuition. If you pay tuition to attend a class, you don’t get a refund for being out sick one day.

When should we start looking for daycare?

ASAP. While you’re still pregnant would be ideal. We started looking when I was about 20 weeks pregnant (7 months before we would actually need him to start) and most of the centers already had a wait list. We ended up reserving a spot for him with an in-home provider about 6 months ahead of when we’d need the spot. As for reserving a spot, there is usually a deposit involved. At some centers, it’s 1 month’s fee. Some in-home providers don’t allow spots to be reserved that far in advance and you may have to wait until it gets closer if you decide to go that route.

Where should my daycare be located?

We were not sure about this when we began our search. Bill and I both work in the same city about 40 minutes away from our home. Would it be convenient to have Caelan in daycare near where we work? Near our home? Somewhere along our commute? We looked at providers in all 3 areas and ended up deciding to go with one near our home. It’s true that when they call us and tell us he’s sick and we have to go get him that it will be at least 45 minutes until we get there. But because our provider is so close to our home, Caelan’s “commute” and the time he spends in the car amounts to about 4 minutes per day. Lucky boy

How do I find a daycare?

As I said at the beginning of this post, selecting a daycare was a very stressful experience for me. I did a lot of research into centers (searching websites and making phone calls – and I HATE making phone calls!) to find out about hours, prices, and availability. I also got recommendations from friends and scheduled tours/visits of these places (which were usually mid-day so they required us to take off work). Bill and I disagreed on what price we thought was reasonable and we ended up looking into in-home providers as a result. We are very happy with our choice and it was a huge relief to get Caelan’s spot reserved and out of the way when he was still a fetus!

Resources

Maryland Family Network

www.MDChildCare.org

A great site where you can search for centers or in-home providers by location. There is often information about each provider’s hours, policies, and sometimes prices. Though it’s not always 100% accurate on the prices, so a phone call to confirm would be wise.

Maryland State Department of Education’s List of Licensed Childcare Providers

http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/child_care/lists

This list provides the address and contact information as well as the provider’s license number.

Maryland State Department of Education’s Compliance Records Search

http://msdecompliancereports.org/msdesearch.asp

to search for a provider’s licensing inspection records.

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So…are you panicked yet?? Searching for someone to care for your child (and possibly spend more time with them than you do during the week) is a big undertaking. Aside from the obvious safety and logistical concerns, I think the biggest thing is feeling comfortable with the provider you choose. We did 7 visits/interviews and I knew pretty much right away whether or not I’d feel comfortable leaving my child with each one of them. Knowing that I felt really comfortable with our provider made it a little less traumatic to drop of my teeny tiny 11 week old on my first day back to work!

Reflections – Months 6-9

Every phase of Caelan’s life so far has been easy, hard, exciting, and fun in its own way. But these past 3 months have been SO eventful that this may have been the most exciting phase so far. I’ve heard that 7-10 months is a great age, and I definitely agree! Of course, no phase is without its challenges.

It was right around 6 months when I felt for the first time “I need a break”. We had gone out with out Caelan many times for dinner or a movie or whatever, but those times we went out because we wanted to go to dinner, not so much because we needed a baby break – at least, that was my view of it. Nighttime sleep was still a mess and we were pretty stressed out.

We decided to give sleep training another try. We had tried it when Caelan was about 4.5 months old but we had to cut our efforts short due to illness. We tried the Ferber method again, and what do you know, it worked. What used to be 3+ hours of rocking and shushing and carefully transferring a sleeping baby into the crib only to have him wake up immediately was now a much, MUCH simpler process. We laid him down in the crib awake and by the 2^nd night, he was crying/fussing less than 5 minutes and then sleeping an average of 10 hours straight. By the 4^th week, he stopped crying/fussing altogether and now he just falls asleep and regularly sleeps 11+ hours straight.

A huge weight was lifted off us when Caelan started sleeping so much better. I didn’t even realize how stressed I was about it. I still needed that break though and I managed to arrange a Friday off of work right before Christmas when Caelan would be going to daycare. It was my first free day since he was born and even though I spent it doing lots of last minute stuff for Christmas, it was wonderful. A friend suggested that I try to arrange a free day like this every few months and I think I will try to take her advice.

Caelan’s first Christmas was a lot of fun and it was around this time that he mastered sitting up by himself.

We left Caelan overnight for the first time on New Years Eve when he was 7 months old. It worked out really well. I wasn’t anxious at all about leaving him and it wasn’t until the end of the night and the next morning that I felt anxious to get back to him. He did wonderfully at his Nana and Pop’s house and I’m relieved that it went so well.

In January, around 7.5 months, we started finger foods with Caelan. It was really slow going at first and of course Bill and I were afraid he’d choke on anything we gave him, but he’s really getting the hang of it now. He went on several puree-strikes where he refused to eat anything we gave him – even his favorites. Maybe it’s because we introduced finger foods and he’s over the purees? Either way, we’re going to be moving away from purees altogether as he eats more real table foods. He’s still taking 4 bottles of formula a day and though we’ve given him a sippy cup to try, he’s not got the hang of that yet.

After cutting his first 2 bottom teeth way back in October, he cut 3 top teeth back to back near the end of January (7.5-8 months old). At the moment, he has another one that should be breaking through any day now for a total of 6 teeth!

Also in January, we packed away the swing and bouncy seat (which he has outgrown) and lowered his crib in anticipation of him standing up. Turns out it wasn’t a moment too soon!

Between 7.5 and 8.5 months, Caelan went from being a if-I-leave-him-on-the-blanket-he’ll-stay-there baby to being an ack-he’s-standing-up-on-the-other-side-of-the-room baby. Mobility changes the game. All the sudden, in a matter of just 2 weeks or so, he could get into a sitting position by himself, he switched to hands-and-knees crawling, and he started pulling up on anything he could reach (stable or not!). He is everywhere all the time and it is definitely exhausting but exciting too.

Somehow, we never got into the habit of taking Caelan out places with us. We probably should have taken advantage of his portability and constant sleeping when he was a tiny newborn, but that was when we were brand new parents and too nervous to take him out! We took him to restaurants sometimes and to our parents’ and friends’ houses, but we never just took him with us on errands. There wasn’t really much need because errands could usually be planned for a time when one of us could stay home with Caelan. But now I’m trying to make an effort to take him out more. He loves people-watching and has been very well behaved so far. He went on his first real grocery shopping trip with me at 8 months. It’s so much easier now that he can sit in the cart and I don’t have to bring in the infant seat!

Up until recently, I thought I had a handle on being a working parent. Caelan has been sick occasionally and I’ve had to take a couple days off work to stay home with him, but that’s no big deal. But then in mid-February he came down with a cold virus, followed immediately by a stomach virus and we had to keep him out of daycare for a week. I felt guilty leaving work early, I felt guilty calling out of work, I felt guilty going to work when he was sick – it was a no win situation for me. Thankfully, Bill’s parents were able to cover a couple days at the end so Bill and I weren’t out of work for too long, but ugh. It was a really rough week that had me wondering what it would be like to be a stay-at-home mom, or at least a mom with only a part-time job. And did I mention that Bill had food poisoning this same week??

Back on the up side, he’s so expressive lately and his language is really developing. He laughs much more often now and even has a couple different kinds of laughs (a machine-gun-like “heh heh heh” and a real belly laugh). We hear strings of babble like “dadadada” but nothing directed at Bill yet. A lot of his other sounds are starting to sound more like words and less like just ooh-ing and ahh-ing. Just in the past week, he’s started waving. Often it’s random, but occasionally he will wave at us or in response to our waves. We’re dying for him to actually SAY something we understand, but the waving is really cute and pretty much like a “hi” He is also starting to object (sob) if we take a toy away or move him away from something he’s trying to get into. I thought we had a few more months until the tantrums started, but I guess not!

If my friends’ older kids are any indication, I know what’s on the horizon for us: walking and talking (not necessarily before his 1st birthday, but soon anyway). I’m sure there will be many times after he’s reached those milestones that I will wish that he would sit still and shut up for just a minute, but right now, I can’t wait

Now that we’re headed into the last 3 months of his first year, time to start (continue) planning that first birthday party

Boston Cream Pie, take 2 (-ish)

The first part of the year is birthday season in my family. My birthday in January, then both of my parents in February, then my sister in March. My brother- and mother-in-law also have birthdays in the early part of the year. We used to have a separate birthday dinner for each person, but in recent years we’ve decided to double up or combine celebrations to accommodate many people’s schedules (and basketball season).

This year, my parents and I (and Bill and Caelan) got together to celebrate my birthday (4 weeks late), my dad’s birthday (1 week late), and my mom’s birthday (1 week early). I wanted to make a cake, but since mine was one of the birthdays that we’d be celebrating, I decided to go with just a “cake” rather than a “birthday cake”.

Boston Cream donuts are my favorite and I’d never tried to make a whole pie before, but this seemed like a good time to give it a shot. I made a half-assed attempt at Boston Cream cupcakes awhile back, but this time I used an actual recipe and made real pastry cream. Or attempted to do so.

I made the pastry cream (I used the recipe from this post on Annie’s Eats) the night before I was going to assemble the cake and put it in the fridge overnight. I was disappointed the next day to find that it didn’t set up and was unusable. The pastry cream is essentially a custard and custards are definitely tricky, but I’ve made them many times before (in the form of crème brûlée) and was successful. Anyway, I didn’t have time to risk another attempt (and I’m not sure exactly where I went wrong), so I looked around my kitchen for something to improvise with and I came up with a mixture of french vanilla pudding mix, milk, Cool Whip, and a tiny bit of vanilla extract. It was passable (though actually less so after being chilled).

Then I made the frosting (dark chocolate ganache) and though I’ve made it several times before, I had issues with this too! It was too thick to spread so I kept adding half-and-half to make it manageable.

The cake tasted good (though I’m less and less enamored with that recipe the more I make it – I should try a new yellow cake recipe) but it wasn’t a real Boston Cream pie. So it looks like I will be making a 3rd attempt at this at some point because I really want to get this one right!!

The Mommy Wars and the Non-Reality of The Bump

I have been posting on the message boards on TheKnot, TheNest, and TheBump for the past few years. I enjoy posting there and I have learned a ton and I’ve made some really good friends. But sometimes I need a reminder that these boards are not reality. They’re sort of a bubble – separate from the rest of the world and things get a little…skewed.

When Caelan was sleeping through the night at 2 months old and Bill and I thought we were sitting pretty, I learned from TheBump a little bit about what was to come. The dreaded 4 Month Wakeful period. Everyone on TheBump knows about the 4 Month Wakeful (or 4MW, for short) so I was sure that all parents knew about it. Bill gave me a blank stare when I mentioned it to him but I said confidently, “Ask your friends at work who have kids – they’ll know!”. Well, he asked several friends (with many kids between them) and none of them had ever heard of the so-called 4MW. So I asked my non-Bump friends and learned that they hadn’t heard of it either. A little bit of reading and research told me that there is often a period of regression in sleep habits around 3-5 months of age, coinciding with a significant leap in cognitive development, but the term “4MW” seemed to be a Bump thing.

That was the first time I took a step back and reminded myself that TheBump is not an accurate sampling of real life. Yes, lots of my Bumpie friends went through the 4MW with their kids (and we did with Caelan), but that doesn’t mean everyone does.

Another thing I’ve learned on TheBump is that for every choice Bill and I make for how to raise Caelan, there is someone out there who will judge us for it. Someone out there would never do what we’ve done and thinks that we’ve now “ruined” our child. But we haven’t. Yes, we formula feed and we send Caelan to daycare while we both work. We use disposable diapers and feed him store-bought baby food. We let him sleep on his stomach and we’ve given him juice. He slept in our bed with us on many rough nights and eventually we let him cry it out (CIO) in his crib in his own room.

Someone (in real life and on TheBump) is going to judge us for all of those decisions. These are the Mommy Wars. Millions of moms out there turning their noses up at other moms for making parenting decisions different than their own. Misinformation is spreading like wildfire and is being used to fuel these arguments. It does make for some interesting entertainment on the boards, but I’ve encountered far less hostility over these issues in real life.

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in the hysteria of something. “Omg, have we been letting him watch too much tv?? Is his brain rotted already??” Yeah, probably not. We just have to remember that most parents out there are just winging it (like we are) and trying to do what they think is best for their child(ren) and their family. My kid is happy and healthy and we’re doing what’s best for our family. Since that’s all that matters, I’m going to take a pass on those Wars if you don’t mind.

Valentine’s Day: A Change of Perspective

Back in high school when I first started dating, I hated anything that could be considered a romantic gesture: flowers, jewelry, etc. I was annoyed any time I received a gift like this from a guy I was dating. And of course I hated Valentine’s Day because that usually brought out even more of this mushy romantic stuff and I turned my nose up at it. I was kind of a bitch in high school.

One year, the guy I was dating at the time broke up with me on Valentine’s Day and I was crushed. After that, of course Valentine’s Day was even more evil and no good could ever come from this wretched “holiday”. I guess I was overly-dramatic in high school too, but hey, I was a teenager. They are, by nature, bitchy and dramatic.

In my single late-high school and college years, I adopted an angry attitude about V-Day. I’m pretty sure I burned a mix CD of angry songs about it. I even gave the “collection” a clever title (that escapes me now).

I was in my mid-20′s when I met Bill and started what would be my first and (thankfully!) last adult relationship. We celebrated Valentine’s Day like civilized adults with a dinner date and by exchanging small gifts. Four years ago on February 15, 2008 (technically the day after V-Day, but it was our V-Day date so it counts) Bill nervously got down on one knee in a restaurant and asked me to marry him. And Valentine’s Day was redeemed.

Over the years, we’ve celebrated V-Day in a low-key fashion. Usually a dinner date, flowers, candy, and maybe a small gift. Yes, those are all the things that used to annoy me back in high school but things change after 15+ years.

This year was our first V-Day as parents. We planned a dinner date, lined up some grandparents to take the kiddo for the evening, and planned another low-key but much needed date night. That date didn’t end up happening. First the kiddo got sick, then me, then Bill, then a trip to the hospital, then the kiddo got sick again and date night plans were scrapped. I spent the actual V-Day at home with our kiddo who has a stomach virus. I’ll spare you the details of my day but you can imagine.

But you know? It’s okay. There were still flowers and candy and cards. And we can (and will) go to dinner another night. (There’s no shortage of grandparents eager to babysit around here!) I’m glad all of the angst that used to surround this holiday is gone. What’s really important is that Bill and I love each other, we love our kiddo, and now that the holiday is over…candy will be on sale for half price

How to Color Icing

I’ve seen a few posts lately on Facebook and on my message board asking how to color icing, so I thought I would write up a quick tutorial.

When you think of food color, you probably think of this:

The basic liquid food coloring in the little squeeze droppers. This kind of color is great for coloring liquids (like for dying eggs) or for making pastels where you only need a tiny bit of color.

The problem with liquid colors is that if you need to make a dark color, you’ll need to use a ton of dye and the liquid will affect the consistency (and possibly taste) of your icing. So what’s the alternative? Concentrated gel colors.

The above pictured gel colors are made by Wilton and are available in tons of different shades. You can get them at stores like Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, or JoAnn’s (or online too of course). They cost about $2 for a 1 oz jar.

To give you an idea of the difference in concentration between the liquids and the gels, let’s look back to a full sheet cake I made about a year ago. I was making red velvet cake and I would have needed about 12 oz of liquid red color for that cake (to the tune of about $30). Instead, I used gel color and used about 1/2 an ounce (about $1).

So how do you use gel colors? It’s pretty easy actually. All you need is…

• Bowl of icing
• Gel colors
• Tooth picks
• Spatula and/or mixer

To color your white icing, dip the tip of a toothpick into the jar of color and then swirl the toothpick around in the bowl of icing. A little goes a long way, so just add a tiny bit at a time. Mix with a mixer and/or spatula.

If the icing isn’t dark enough yet, get a new toothpick and dip it in the color again, then swirl in the icing and mix. Repeat until you have the color you want. Color the whole batch at once since it will be very difficult to mix up another batch later and match the color.

The color will darken the longer it sits. Check out these cupcakes for example:

 

These were both iced from the same batch of icing (and cropped out of the same photo). The one on the left I iced first, then stuck it in the fridge. I also put the remaining icing (in a sealed plastic container) in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I put the remaining icing in the mixer for a few minutes, then iced the cupcake on the right.

Mixing the right shade can be a little difficult. Especially with a dark color, like red. True red is so difficult to get right! Wilton has 3 different shades of red to choose from: Christmas Red (kind of blueish), Red-Red (true red), and No-Taste Red (more coral-y). The fact that a no-taste version exists is proof that it takes A LOT of dye to get a true red. However, I always use Red-Red for my reds because I don’t like the lighter shade of the no-taste version and I have never noticed a taste left by the dye.

Below on the left is one of my very first cakes, when I still used liquid red food coloring (and before I learned how to pipe a shell border – yikes). The one on the right was made using a gel color.

 

For more info on decorating cupcakes specifically, check out my Cupcake Tutorial post!

Brought to you by the letter S and the number 32

Okay I’ve been listening to too much Sesame Street…

Today is my 32nd birthday. It’s not much of a milestone, but according to my “research” it’s a happy number so that’s a good thing, right?!

I share my birthday with…

• Justin Timberlake (31)
• Minnie Driver (41)
• Nolan Ryan (65)
• Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)

…and plenty of others.

Some randomness about the number 32…[source]

• 32 is the ninth happy number.
• ASCII and Unicode code point for space.
• the smallest number n with exactly 7 solutions to the equation φ(x) = n.
• the atomic number of germanium.
• the freezing point of water at sea level in degrees Fahrenheit.
• Messier 32, a magnitude 9.0 galaxy in the constellationAndromeda which is a companion to M31.
• The code for international direct dial phone calls to Belgium.
• the number of completed, numbered piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven
• the number worn by Philadelphia Phillies Hall of Famer Steve Carlton.
• the number worn by Los Angeles Lakers Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.

And of course, 32 is how old my husband was when he met me. Hard to believe I was only 25!

I never thought I’d be a programmer

I graduated from college in December 2003 and spent a year sending out resumes and trying to find a job in my field (IT). I had a really hard time finding something, most likely because I had no work experience at all. Well, not in this field anyway. I sent out close to 100 resumes and I went on only about a half dozen interviews.

I finally interviewed with a small consulting company in my hometown for a programming position. Now when I was in school, I hated programming. HATED. As in, I cried and cursed and frantically tried to get my mess of a program to compile at 11:59pm so I could submit it by midnight. And I swore I could never be a programmer because of how frustrating and stressful it is.

In the year between getting my degree and getting my job, I built a website. It’s no longer up and running, but I designed and built a Harry Potter website called 12 Grimmauld Place. I had learned HTML and CSS in one of the last courses I took at UMBC and I enjoyed the structure and organization of writing a webpage. I picked up a familiarity with JavaScript during this process – enough to copy a free sample of code and tweak it for my use.

It turns out that that got me my job.

Seven years ago today I sat in this same chair at this same desk in front of this same screen with that JavaScript book in my lap as I was thrown into the deep end and asked to write some original code. It took me a little bit of time to come up to speed, but I learned quickly.

Now I’m a senior staff member, having been here longer than most of the others. I’m not sure whether or not I thought I’d be here this long and I’m not sure whether or not I’ll stay another 7 years. But I work for a company full of good people who took a chance on me and I will always be grateful for that.

Moments of Clarity

Every now and then it hits me. OMG I HAVE A BABY. A BABY. I’m somebody’s mother. It’s absolutely surreal.

Right after Caelan was born, and even now almost 8 (!) months later, Bill and I will randomly whisper to each other incredulously: “Hon…we have a baby. We made him out of nothing.” Now we joke that we made him out of macaroni & cheese and Subway, with some iced tea thrown in there too (yeah we’re healthy).

Now that he’s getting older, I’m catching more and more glimpses of familiar in his face and expressions. I think he looks like Bill, but I think a lot of his facial expressions and mannerisms are like mine.

Before you get annoyed with my gushing, let me assure you that we are not always basking in the warm comforting glow of parenthood. And to answer my family’s often-asked question…No, we do not just sit around and stare at the baby all the time! Most of the time we are just doing normal everyday stuff. We cook dinner, wash dishes and bottles, fold laundry in front of the TV, wrestle a baby into a clean diaper while he tries to crawl off the changing pad, try to feed him while he’s intent on keeping his mouth closed, try to stave off a melt down, or try to get our reluctant napper to go down for more than 30 minutes on a weekend. That’s why those little moments of clarity are so welcome. Yeah, we’re tired and frustrated sometimes, but look! We made this baby and look how cute he is

And now, a few gratuitous photos… (please excuse the poor quality, they’re phone pics)

My 100th Post

100 posts in 2-ish years really isn’t that many, but it seemed like a milestone worth mentioning! I am still surprised that people actually read my blog so I thought I would take a little poll and find out how exactly I came to have “followers”.

I am also well aware that if I want to continue having “followers” I need to post more often! I’m really going to try and work on that this year I have several half-written posts floating around but none of them have taken their final form as of yet. But stay tuned, and thank you for reading!!