Daycare moving into the age of technology.

We love our daycare.... Sometimes Courtney gets her shoes on and says "Bye Bye". When we ask her where she is going, she declares "Sara". The other kids there are great and i love all of the projects that get sent home. Up until this week, Sara would write in a notebook the mealtimes, nap times, wet diaper # and dirty diaper #, and anything else they did that day. It is nice to have that to refer back to even as Courtney is getting older. Well, now there is something new! She has a website. It is very private so that only the daycare families can have access, but now that she doesn't write in 6 little notebooks, we get even more details! She also sends individual messages via the site, if there is something that needs to be addressed for that one family. Since we are still in the process of getting rid of Courtney's morning nap, Sara said that she would e-mail me her nap times daily. I LOVE it!

Here is an example journal post:

Book: Icky Bugs

Songs: "Here today", "Days of the Week", "Mr. Sun", and "ABC's"

New word: nocturnal (owls like to sleep during the day and stay awake at night)

8am Breakfast: Waffle, banana, milk

11:45am Lunch: grilled cheese, grapes, carrots, milk

Snack: cheez-its, cucumbers

It turned out to be a beautiful morning! Everyone enjoyed playing in the backyard. *****explored the grass, leaves, and sand - without eating it! Courtney and ****enjoyed the swings and slides with help from *** pushing. Courtney is now able to get on/off the rocket swing quite easily! The little ones are working on walking around the swings to avoid getting hit. The big boys are working on watching for the girls! The big boys did lots of digging, especially ****. **** took turns hiding/finding the green token in the sand. The children also enjoyed music/dance, puzzles, and playing with animals. *** and *** helped me prepare lunch and set the table. ** and *** took turns "reading" books to each other and playing build-a-word (letter recognition). It was a great morning with, beleive it or not, NO TIME-OUTS! Everyone listened and played well together.

I wanted to take a couple pictures, but realized this morning my camera battery was dead. I'll be sure to put some up tomorrow! I plan to slowly post our songs we sing, too, so you can sing them at home. These journal entries will be taking the place of your individual notebooks. I plan to post here each day during quiet time. I may also send very short, personal info to each family, as needed, about your child's day.

Be sure to check out the "news" section with updated info. The calendar is nearly complete through Dec. 2012 with dates I plan to be closed. I will inform you when all 2012 dates are finalized.

I hope you find this website helpful and easy to use! Have a great afternoon,

If you didn't figure it out, I took out the other kids' names and replaced them with ***.

I am hoping that for the first year, Sara will still keep a notebook for the new baby as there are more details that I feel I should know, or if not the notebook, an e-mail or message via the website. We will see when the time comes :)

What have you been doing?

If someone asked me "What have you been doing the past week?" I would have to respond as such.... " I have been on the phone looking for a new daycare." I have removed all of the explicit language that I would have inserted had this been any thing other than "G rated". I wish that I could say I had forgotten how painful searching for day care was, but I really hadn't.

For those of you that don't know. Our daycare provider Meredith has decided to go back to school. Last year, her husband was laid off (a shop teacher) but right before labor day got a 3/4 teaching job in which he is home by 2pm every day. So a week ago, Meredith informed me that as of January 3rd, she will be closing her daycare at 3pm Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so she can take classes at 4pm. So I asked her some additional questions and she will proceed with those hours until January of 2012 when she will close her daycare. Courtney is doing so well with Meredith and the kids there, that I had contemplated trying to adjust my hours to fit the new day care hours. After a bit of discussion, Brian and I decided that moving Courtney now is going to be much easier than moving her when she is 1 1/2 years old. So.... here's to another round of daycare interviews...