Moms love to fuss and make a big deal out of nothing. Daycare is one of those things.

Right off the start, I hate the concept of kindergarden. I am sure it was a great idea in the stone age where most moms stayed at home and dropping their kids off for three hours in the middle off the day was handy thing to do. Today, with only 30% of stay-at-home rate, it is not very helpful for the other 70% of parents. The option is now to either keep the kids in daycare centres (which have kindergarten programs) and skipping the public school until grade 1 or to find a home daycare within bussing distance of the school and have the daycare provider walk your kid to school or a bus stop.

Ironically enough I will be at home during next year because I will be on mat leave. Theoretically I will be able to walk Trev to his three hours of kindergarden and keep him home for the rest of the day. As this is essentially free, financially wise, it is the best choice. However, he is a picky eater at home but eats everything at the daycare. Also, he is very introverted and I am not sure how healthy would it be for him to spend most of his day with an exhausted adult and a baby instead of kids his own age. Sure, I have some friends with kids his age at home, and I could make a point of taking him to city playgroups, but this is not something I can really rely on for every day of the week.

The daycare center Trev is at now is fantastic, but they only take kids between ages of 2 and 5. This means that even if I keep Trev in the center next year, I will have to find a home daycare within bussing distance for the year after. I will definitely have to find a home care for him once he starts elementary school. The home care Owen is in now is good, but it is not in the bussing range. I have a couple of names, but I am still a bit weary of switching home cares, especially after the bad experience we’ve had last time we tried to find daycare in our neighbourhood (The morning we were about to take Trev to daycare, the lady called us to tell us that she had changed her mind and will not take him). Because I will not be requiring home daycare for another year, it is too early to start interviewing people and while finding after school home daycare should not be a big problem, very few home daycares will take babies as they are not profitable. To muddy the water, we just got an e-mail from a daycare centre near my work saying that they have a space for Trev for next year.

So in summary:

Options for 2011/2012 school year
1. Keep all three kids at home – cheap and insane
2. Trev stays in local daycare center, Owen goes to current home daycare part time until a space opens for him in the local daycare centre, we take Trev out of the centre at the beginning of summer – pricey but doable
3. Put Trev in the other daycare centre, Owen should get in soon afterwards, under siblings rule. Keep Trev there until he is ready for elementary school – convenient but very expensive, also I would have to drive them there rather than walk or bike as it is quite far

Options for 2012/2013 school year
1. Hope I can find a good home daycare in the neighbourhood for both Trev and the baby, Owen goes to local daycare centre once he turns 2 and a half, or he already has a spot at 2 years old if Trev was there when Owen turned 2
2. Trev and Owen go to the far daycare centre, baby goes to our current home daycare until there is a spot for him with his brothers (at 18 months)
3. If I can’t find care for the baby in the neighbourhood, baby stays at far home daycare, Trev goes to local home daycare and Owen goes to local daycare centre. This will mean that I will have three different spots to drop the kids off every day.

Frankly, if I was running the world (or Ontario, anyway), I would cancel all kindergarden programs that are housed in elementary schools. If you are going to implement pre-elementary school education, than do it as a part of a full service, 9 hours per day, full lunch cooked from scrap on premisses, two hour nap and enclosed playground daycare centre that takes in kids between 1 and 6 years old. You could even have special hours where stay-at-home moms could drop their kids off for instruction free of charge. This whole patchwork care we have currently is driving me crazy.