My worst day as a working mom

I was in the office today and had lunch with one of my friends, who had her first baby back in January. She just started back at work a few weeks ago, so not surprisingly, it didn't take long for our conversation to drift to the topic of working motherhood.

She is pretty unhappy right now, for a variety of reasons, and talking fairly seriously about quitting her job to stay home with her daughter. Listening to her struggles took me back to my early months back at work.

I started this blog about three months after I returned to work, which means you all were spared the depths of my working-mom despair. I've talked a little bit about it, here and here, but... well, it was bad. Sometimes, I look back and I'm just amazed I made it through and that I am so genuinely happy right now. That's what I tried to get across to my friend.

Specifically, I told her about my worst day as a working mom.

It was in December, the week before Christmas, so Littles was 6 months old and I had been back to work for just under two months. I was working in the same job that I had had before going on maternity leave, which was an onsite product support position. Pre-baby, that job often took me on the road for overnight travel.

Luckily, while I was on maternity leave, an amazing opportunity opened up. A customer located just 20 minutes away from my home purchased a block of "dedicated" hours -- basically, they paid big bucks to get a support person assigned to work through support issues with them. I hoped to be that person, as it would guarantee little to no overnight travel for me.

That week before Christmas, there was a big meeting at the customer site to discuss plans for a big project that would require a significant amount of support. I was invited to sit in on the meeting. All the project bigwigs would be at the meeting, and I saw this as an opportunity to make a good impression and solidify me as their dedicated support person.

The meeting was scheduled from 8 AM to 5 PM. Since Hubby was out of town, this meant I had to ask Maria, our nanny, to come at 7:30 AM so that I could leave Littles with her and get to the meeting. Since it usually took a few minutes to get Littles settled with Maria, I told the meeting organizer that I'd likely be a few minutes late. Not much I could do about that -- I felt bad enough making Maria come an hour early as it was. But I also felt bad wandering in a few minutes late, knowing that the reason for my late arrival likely hadn't been communicated to all the attendees.

As usual during onsite customer visits, pumping was a huge pain. The meeting ran all day, with just some very brief breaks and a working lunch. I didn't even have enough time to make it out to my car, so I pumped in the bathroom for the first time. The female bigwigs from the meeting used the same bathroom, and I worried about what they thought when they heard the "whoomp-whoomp" of my pump. In my head, they were saying, "Why is she pumping in the bathroom? She's so stupid." "She breastfeeds? Yuck. That's so gross." (No one actually said anything to me, but I worried nonetheless.)

I also stressed about not being able to pump often enough. I had had a bout with the stomach flu about two weeks earlier, which had killed my supply, and my freezer stash was dwindling dangerously low. I was pretty sure I was just days away from supplementing with formula. It was a very bad time for me to have a day where I could barely pump at all.

So it was a stressful day for all those reasons. But the kicker came at the end of the day.

As I said before, the meeting was scheduled to run till 5 PM. 5 PM rolled around and the leader showed no signs of wrapping things up. Then, at 5:30 PM (the time that Maria expected me home), we launched into an entirely new -- and extremely important -- topic of conversation. This was not something that could be covered quickly. I knew it could take hours.

I sat in the back of the room squirming. With Hubby out of town and no family or friends anywhere nearby, I was the only one who could pick up Littles.

There were no openings in the conversation for me to explain why I had to leave. And I was on the verge of tears anyway, and didn't trust my own voice.

Finally, at 6 PM, I got up and just walked out. (I later found out that the meeting ran until almost 9 PM.)

I ran to my car and sobbed the entire way home. I felt like a complete failure, as an employee and as a mother. I just wanted to make it all stop, quit my job and stay at home and stop feeling pulled in so many different directions. It is very lucky that I was at a customer site and not at my own office, because if my boss had been there at that moment, I might have quit my job on the spot.

That was absolute rock bottom for me. I teared up today as I was talking to my friend about it, just remembering all the emotions I was feeling at the time.

It turned out that I hadn't made a terrible impression on the bigwigs -- or if I had, no one said anything or acted badly towards me. I was able to act as their dedicated support person for the next few months, until I moved into my current job, and it kept my travel low and my life somewhat sane.

On the mom front, Maria didn't mind my late pickup at all. And I made it through the last few days before Christmas (and then my remaining months pumping at work) without having to supplement with formula, so there were no long-term ill effects from that day of not pumping enough.

And now... here I am. Happy with my working mom life. If you had told me on that December drive home that I would be here today, I never would have believed it.

I'm so glad I stuck it out.

Cloth diapers and the working mom

We’ve been using cloth diapers for about 9 months now, starting when Littles was about 15 months old. I find that a lot of people have misconceptions about cloth diapers, especially how it works with daycare and busy schedules and other pieces of a working mom’s (and dad’s!) life, so I figured I’d share a little bit about our experience.

Cloth diapers? Are you crazy? Sorry, I don’t do diaper pins.
That makes two of us! If you haven’t seen modern cloth diapers, take a peek at the selection at a store like Jillian’s Drawers. There are many different types, none of which require pins (a nifty device called a Snappi replaces pins for old-fashioned prefold diapers), many of which fasten using velcro tabs just like a disposable.

Pockets and AIOs and fitteds… oh my! Getting started is so overwhelming!
I felt the same way! So I started with the Changing Diapers Changing Minds (CDCM) trial program from Jillian’s Drawers.

How does the trial work? You pay for seven different cloth diapers, along with a few accessories. You keep them for three weeks. At the end of three weeks, you ship back any or all of the diapers for a full refund, less a $10 program fee. If you choose to keep all the diapers, you get a $10 refund.

A trial isn’t the cheapest way to get started, but it’s the most risk-free, since you can return everything if you find that cloth just doesn’t work for you. You also might be surprised by which diapers you end up liking, and not liking! I know I was.

Once I figured out what I wanted, I started browsing the Diaper Swappers forums. This is a great marketplace to buy and sell used cloth diapers. It’s extremely overwhelming at first, so I don’t recommend it to complete cloth newbies, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and found it to be a valuable resource for finding new diapers -- and saving a ton of money.

Wait, wait, wait. Used diapers? Gross!
Well... not really. I mean, it's not like they come to you with some other baby's poop in them! (That would be gross!)

I always wash new-to-me diapers once with bleach to kill any lingering nasties, then put them through another complete wash cycle before putting them on Littles. I've never had any issues.

And the savings are huge. All told, I've saved close to 60% of retail by buying used.

Speaking of price, are you really saving money compared to disposables? Aren't cloth diapers really expensive?
You can save a ton of money with cloth diapers, especially if you start early in your child's life.

To throw out some numbers, I estimate that we would need to spend a minimum of $9/week on disposable diapers for Littles. That's about 6 diapers/day, at about 20 cents/diaper. (Extremely conservative estimates.)

I've spent about $450 on Littles' current stash. This includes not only the diapers themselves but also things like absorbent inserts for pocket diapers, covers for prefolds and fitteds, accessories such as Snappis and wetbags for dirty diapers, etc. Factor in the occasional pack of disposable diapers (e.g. to use while traveling) and laundry costs, and let's call it an even $500.

That means we need to use cloth diapers for about a year just to break even with Littles. We might very well make it, as we've got nine months under our belt already and Littles doesn't look like she'll be potty training anytime soon.

Let's say that we do make it to a year and break even. All that work, just to spend the exact same amount?

Well, no. We plan to have more kids, so we can use Littles' diapers on them to save even more money.

Even if we weren't planning to have more kids, we could always sell Littles' diapers when we're done with them to recoup some of our initial investment. (Try that trick with used disposable diapers!)

And, of course, if we had started cloth diapering Littles earlier, we would have saved even more.

All told, I know we'll end up saving a nice pile of money. And Littles' stash isn't even particularly cheap -- I could have probably put together a fully functional stash for half that price.

If you're looking into cloth diapering to save money, here's a nifty calculator to help you figure out your savings.

Alright, so they're cheaper, but I've heard that cloth diapers really aren't better for the environment.
Yep, this page from Huggies quotes a study sponsored by the UK Government Environment Agency that found that disposable diapers have a similar environmental impact to cloth diapers:

"[The study] showed that using cloth diapers uses more water, energy and detergents, and disposable diapers contribute more solid waste to landfill... Both diaper alternatives were found to have similar, overall impacts on the environment with the differences being the stage of each product's life cycle where the impact occurs."

OK, so the overall environmental impact is the same. Case closed, right? Well, not exactly.

It's important to read through the full study and not rely on a summary because the study makes certain assumptions. Here is a link to the full study. (It seems to move around quite a bit, so apologies in advance if you click on this in the future and it doesn't work.)

As the Huggies site points out, the study finds that "the main source of environmental impact [for home-laundered cloth diapers] is the generation of the electricity used in washing and drying the [diapers]." (page 120)

But now, hop up to page 56 and look at the assumptions made with regards to washing and drying:

• 75% of cloth diapers are laundered in a water temperature of 60°C/140°F, including 32.1% that are laundered at 90°C/194°F.
• 19% of cloth diapers are tumble dried.
• 9.5% of cloth diapers are ironed.

The problems with these assumptions? At least for me:

• I never wash my diapers in water hotter than 140°F. In fact, most pocket/AIO manufacturers recommend water no hotter than 140°F, as it can break down the waterproof layer in those diapers faster. And 194°F? Forget about it!
• I always line dry my diapers.
• I never iron my diapers.

So without a doubt, my energy usage will be lower than the "average" based on that study. And again, the study found that the main environmental impact of cloth diapers is in washing/drying, so if I can cut the environmental impact of washing/drying... well, that's very significant.

In contrast, there's no way to cut the amount of solid waste you contribute to a landfill by using disposable diapers. (Well, I suppose you could just use one diaper a day or something, but that would be gross.)

Even so-called "green" disposables aren't much better than regular disposables when it comes to the amount of solid waste generated. In theory, they are biodegradable (unlike regular disposables), but in practice, "nothing degrades well in a landfill."

What about the laundry? I work full-time and barely have enough time to keep up the house as it is!
Again, that makes two of us :) But cloth diapers really don't take that much more time, compared to disposables. Here's a breakdown:

• Pee diapers go directly in the pail. No difference between cloth and disposables.
• Poopy diapers need to be dumped in the toilet. This takes maybe a minute. You can cut down that time by using flushable liners -- the liner catches the poop, and then you dump it all into the toilet.
  This wasn't a big deal for us, as we always dumped poop out of disposables to cut down on the smell. And it's worth noting that you're supposed to dump poop out of disposables too, for health reasons.
• Taking the pail down to the washing machine takes no more time than taking out a load of disposable diaper trash.
• It takes me about 5 minutes to put the diapers on the drying rack to dry. (I could cut that time by tumble drying, but as noted above, that increases the environmental impact.)
• It takes me about 15 minutes to stuff the absorbent inserts into the pocket diapers Littles uses at daycare. This is easy and can be done while talking on the phone, watching TV, etc. (I could also cut that time by using all-in-one diapers instead, which don't require stuffing.)

All told, it's about 20 minutes of extra work each time I do diaper laundry. I do diaper laundry once every three days, so we're talking an extra 40-60 minutes of work each week. That's far less time than I spend on our other laundry! It's entirely doable, even with a full-time job.

Did you ever consider a diaper service instead of washing your own diapers?
We did, very briefly, when I was pregnant with Littles. We quickly eliminated it because it's as expensive as disposables, if not more so!

Now that I know more about cloth diapering, I would never even think about doing a diaper service, for many reasons:

• Diaper services only provide prefolds, which are the "old fashioned" diapers that many people think of when they think of cloth diapers. They don't provide the more modern and easy-to-use pockets and all-in-ones. That said, I actually really like prefolds... but for working moms, they're a no-go at most daycares.
• As we realized previously, it's expensive! The local diaper service here in Dallas charges $75/month for 80 diapers/week, which is what's recommended for a newborn. Compare that to the cost of 80 disposables/week: That would cost around $70/month if you pay 20 cents/diaper. And compare that to the cost of purchasing 30 prefolds (enough to go 3 days between laundering) and washing them yourself: Even new prefolds only cost about $2 apiece, so you'd spend just $60 upfront, less than either of the other two options -- and that would be all you would need to spend on diapers for the first six months or so! (You would still need to buy covers, but you need to buy covers with a diaper service too.)
• It's not very "green." Most diaper services wash diapers at extremely hot temperatures in order to properly sanitize them so that they can be used on multiple babies. Some also use bleach and other additives regularly. Laundering at home, I can wash at lower temperatures because the diapers are just used on one baby, and I can minimize the use of additives like bleach. That lowers the overall environmental impact.
• The downside of having someone else wash your diapers is that you end up with a week's worth of dirty diapers sitting around your house!

What about daycare?
When we first switched to cloth, we were sending Littles to a stay-at-home mom during the day. I approached her about trying out some of our diapers, and she agreed. She preferred velcro, so I ended up purchasing 8 BumGenius diapers just for her to use. I also provided a wetbag for her to put dirty diapers in, as well as some disposables for her to use when she wanted. I also told her that she didn't have to dump poop if she didn't want to (although she usually did anyway).

To be honest, it was not a raging success. Although our sitter never said anything explicitly, I strongly suspect that she really didn't like using cloth. Over time, she used disposables more and more. It wasn't uncommon for Littles to come home in a cloth diaper, with only one diaper in the wetbag (i.e. the one I had put on her that morning). We also had a lot of problems with leaking, and our sitter always seemed really annoyed by it. In my opinion, any logical person would have taken the leaking as a sign that Littles needed to be changed more frequently, but I suspect our sitter wanted the excuse to not use cloth.

But we liked our sitter otherwise, and so it wasn't worth raising a stink over. The last straw came in April, when Littles had a week where she leaked just about every day. At that point, we knew we were just weeks away from switching her into a new preschool, so we switched to disposables exclusively for the remaining time with our sitter.

As for her preschool, we are using cloth there too. When we initially decided to go with that school, I decided to approach the director about using cloth diapers. I started by looking up the Texas state licensing requirements to see what they had to say about cloth diapers. In Texas, there are no rules against using cloth diapers; the only requirement is that each soiled (i.e. poopy) diaper must be placed in a separate bag.

So I took that information to the preschool director. Her only concern was about possible smell, but I assured her that I would provide a big wetbag for all diapers and take it home nightly. She agreed to give it a try.

The preschool does have a somewhat unique requirement around diapers in general: They require pull-ups, as they do not do any diaper changes lying down. So I had to figure out a pull-up cloth solution. I evaluated a bunch of different cloth training pants, but Littles really still needs the absorbency of a diaper and I found that the training pants just didn't cut it.

Eventually, I got a tip that just about any side-snapping cloth diaper can be used as a pull-up. I eventually settled on Green Acres Designs (GAD) pockets. I simply stuff each diaper with two inserts (one hemp, one microfiber or bamboo) to increase the absorbency (Littles does pee a lot!), then snap them on the appropriate setting. They pull on just like a disposable pull-up, and then can be snapped off. I also provide a wetbag and a few gallon-size Ziploc bags for poopy diapers. (I hand-wash the used Ziplocs at night.)

Littles has now been in school for four weeks and so far, so good! She has had a few leaks, but nowhere near as bad as with our old sitter. And this past week, I noticed that they have been changing her more frequently (there are usually four diapers in the wetbag at the end of the day, compared to two or maybe three in the first few weeks) and so I'm sure it's no coincidence that this was a leak-free week. They are even dumping poop, which is more than I expected from them!

I'm particularly pleased that the GADs seem to be working out because disposable pull-ups are expensive! They're tough to find for under 30 cents/pull-up. That means we'd likely be spending around $8/week or more just on pull-ups during the day! In comparison, I've spent $127 on the GADs and the extra inserts I needed. We'll break even in just 12 more weeks.

So there you have it -- cloth diapering is totally doable, even for the working mom! I know cloth diapering is not for everyone, but if you've been nervous about starting because you think it's too complicated or too much work, I hope this post helps show otherwise :)

I missed my daughter's birthday

Littles' birthday was last week and I was out of town on a business trip. She's only two and so I know she didn't know the difference, but I felt guilty not being there.

To make matters even worse, the meeting that I had to attend was really stupid and a waste of time. Yet it was timed perfectly to make it completely impossible for me to catch a flight that would put me home before bedtime.

Sometimes, being a working mom really sucks.

Montessori in action

Normally, Littles' preschool asks parents to keep dropoffs short -- no lingering around. But since this is Littles' first week, the director encouraged me to stay a little longer in the mornings to help her settle in. I jumped at the opportunity to get a little taste of what her days will be like and observe the Montessori method first-hand.

We arrived right at 9 AM on Monday morning and went to the extended-care room for a few minutes while the teachers finished preparing the main classrooms.

Most of the kids who had been in extended care went to the school's older classroom (which is for kids who have had at least a year of Montessori and are potty trained). Littles and one other little girl went to the beginner room. Soon, a boy and another girl were dropped off. The teacher told me that one of the girls had just turned 2 in March, and the other girl and boy were both 2.5.

Each child was allowed to choose their Montessori "work" for the morning. Each "work" is basically a toy, but it has a very specific purpose/goal. Littles started out with a geometric sorting board. It is similar to this:

Except the one in Littles' classroom is in the shape of a clown, with the circle as the head, the triangle as the body, the square as the lower body/legs, and the rectangle as an arm raised to the side.

Littles loved taking all the blocks off the pegs and then putting them back on. The toy looks so plain and simple, but when you think about it, it's teaching:

• Colors
• Shapes
• Numbers (since each shape has a different number of holes in it)
• Categorizing (rectangle goes on top of rectangle, square goes on top of square...)
• The one in Littles' classroom also teaches body parts, as well as emotions, because each circle has a face drawn on it that shows a different emotion

After Littles got all the blocks off, she got up and went to get a different "work." Her teacher encouraged her to finish the one she had started, so she sat down and went back to it. She got stuck because she put some of the blocks on the wrong pegs. The teacher demonstrated how to put one of the blocks on the correct pegs, then took the block off and told Littles to try it herself. She picked it up right away and finished putting all the shapes back on the board. Then she was asked to put the board back on the shelf and get a new work.

The next one she picked turned out to be much more complicated. The teacher started to demonstrate it to her, but she lost interest midway through and wandered back to the sorting board. The teacher smiled at me and said, "That's really common at this age. This is a long work." She cleaned up the complicated one while Littles played with the sorting board again.

Meanwhile, the other kids were all concentrating on their own works. At one point, Littles tried to take some pieces of another child's work, and the teacher gently told her, "No, no. That's Stephanie's work. Here's your work." I know that Montessori students are encouraged to work together, and I've seen that in action in the older classroom, but I think that two-year-olds are a little young to "get" that concept :)

It was interesting to see Montessori in action. I feel like I understand a little better why it is considered to be "child centered" and "play based." The Montessori materials are fun to play with! It may be called "work," but it feels like play. And there is no organized activity during the Montessori time; each child chooses what to do. Littles could have played with the geometric shape sorter the entire time, if she had wanted. But each work does have a specific purpose, and the teachers do guide the children one-on-one to better understand the work.

In comparison, when Littles has "dropped in" at various daycare centers, I've seen that there is usually a similar playtime in the mornings, where the children have free roam of the room with no organized activity. But not all toys in the room have a specific educational purpose, like the Montessori materials do. Children are allowed to pick up a toy and put it down -- the teacher does not necessarily encourage them to "figure out" the toy or put it away when they are done with it. And the time really is "free play" with basic supervision by the teacher. The Montessori time feels like play too, but with a purpose, and with one-on-one guidance from the teacher.

That's not to say that the traditional daycares are "bad" or unstructured. I know that the daycares where we've done drop-in care do have plenty of structured educational activities later in the day. Nor am I saying that Littles spends her entire day at her preschool drifting from one Montessori work to another according to her whims. Her classroom does have a lesson plan -- for example, they're learning about the letter "B" right now by (among other things) blowing bubbles, bouncing balls, and listening to bells.

But I can definitely see the difference in the approach. Time will tell whether the Montessori approach is the right one for Littles, but for now, at least, she seems to be doing really well with it.

First day of preschool!

Before:

After:

That's what happens when you don't take a nap all day! She was asleep within 5 minutes of getting in the car :)

Aside from not napping, she did really well! She settled right in to the Montessori "work" in the morning and didn't even cry when I left! When we picked her up, she had something white (yogurt?) all over her shirt, something blue (marker? paint?) all over her hands, and sand in her shoes. I think those are signs of a good day :)

The preschool decision

This post is part of an ongoing series on finding child care.

As I have explained previously, we started looking for a full-time preschool for Littles after her sitter informed us that she was pregnant and would not be able to care for Littles as she neared her due date. We came up with three solid preschool options: two Montessori schools (which I will call Montessori A and Montessori B), and a daycare in the Bright Horizons chain.

I initially visited each school on my own. I liked all three, although each had its strengths and weaknesses.

Montessori A
Pros:

• Good word-of-mouth recommendations
• Directors able to clearly articulate the school's educational philosophy and approach
• Lunch not provided by the school. Parents provide lunch, either from home or through a partnership with local restaurants. (I consider this a pro, as I like being able to have significant control over what Littles eats.)
• Starts at 18 months of age. This meant that Littles could potentially start as soon as they had an opening.
• Two campuses, one near our home and one near our sitter's home. This meant that Littles could potentially start with 3 mornings/week at one campus in the winter/spring (with her sitter picking her up), and then move to full-time in the summer at the campus near our home.

Cons:

• In my discussions with the directors, I felt that there might be a little too much emphasis on academics and being "advanced." As I explained in my last post, my main concern is ensuring that Littles learns to love learning, not that she learns specific skills, and I wasn't sure that Montessori A shared that philosophy.
• In my initial discussion with one director, she made a huge deal out of healthy eating and said that she never, ever allowed junk food into the school, even for special occasions/parties. Then I found out from the other director that one of the local restaurants that the school partners with for catered lunches is Chick-fil-a. Along the same lines, I happened to visit the school on Valentine's Day, and saw tons of cookies, cupcakes, and other junk food. What concerned me most was not the presence of the food itself (I could opt out of Chick-fil-a for Littles, and everyone deserves a little junk food on Valentine's Day!) but the fact that the director had made such a big deal out of healthy food over the phone but apparently ignored it in practice.
• Some things made me question how closely the school adhered to the Montessori philosophy. For example, one of the core tenets of Montessori is mixed-age classrooms (three-year age range), yet most of the Montessori A classrooms seemed to have no more than a two-year age range amongst the students.
• This preschool had a very strange licensing violation, regarding transporting a child between two vehicles while parked on the shoulder of a highway.

Montessori B
Pros:

• Good word-of-mouth recommendations
• Director able to clearly articulate the school's educational philosophy and approach.
• Director specifically emphasized teaching a love of learning over teaching specific skills (unprompted by me)
• Lunch not provided by the school. (See above for why this is a pro for me.)
• Smaller school with just three classrooms total. The director said that it has a "family" feel, where all the kids know each other, and I could definitely sense that when I visited.
• Cheaper than the other two options ($715/month for full-time care, compared to around $850/month for the other two)
• Only licensing violations are paperwork issues (e.g. missing physician information)

Cons:

• Significantly further from our home than the other two options, although still closer than our current sitter. (We actually passed Montessori B every day on the way to our sitter's home.)
• Only takes children starting at age 2. They were willing to take Littles a few weeks shy of her second birthday, but there was no way for her to ease into preschool by starting part-time in the winter/spring.
• Higher student-teacher ratio than the other two preschools, although I believe the class size quoted to me (18 students to two teachers in the "beginner" room) included a significant number of part-timers. It's also worth noting that Montessori does not specifically emphasize low student-teacher ratios, because the idea is that students learn from other students as well as from teachers.
• This may sound silly, but the playground is smaller and has less equipment (especially for kids Littles' age) compared to the other two schools. Also, the other two schools had covered outdoor playgrounds (very important for hot Texas summers!) while Montessori B's playground is uncovered.

Bright Horizons
Pros:

• Some good recommendations from people with children in the infant room at this specific center, and many good recommendations for the Bright Horizons chain in general.
• NAEYC accredited
• Director able to clearly articulate the school's educational philosophy and approach.
• Low student-teacher ratio, and the director specifically mentioned that they keep the ratios below where the corporate office would like them to be because they felt it just worked better that way (even though the corporate office's desired ratios are still well below state maximums)
• Accepts children as young as six weeks, so if we have another child, s/he could go there as well.
• Immediate part-time openings, so we could start Littles two days/week in the winter/spring and then ease into full-time in the summer.
• Smaller center, no "corporate" feel even though it is part of a nationwide chain.

Cons:

• Lunch provided by the school. The menu wasn't bad -- I could definitely live with it -- but I prefer to provide food.
• A licensing violation around not reporting that the infant room had flooded and was unsafe for children. The director explained that they temporarily moved the infants to another room, but still, how can you forget to notify licensing about something like that?

The decision
After visiting all three schools by myself, I was leaning towards Bright Horizons. I liked their curriculum, I liked their teachers and their director, I liked the idea of being able to start Littles part-time at first, I liked the idea of not having to drive so frickin' far to drop her off!

I then went back to visit all three schools with Hubby.

We went to Bright Horizons first, and he walked away saying, "Now I remember why we liked that place so much when we looked at it before." (We had come very close to placing Littles at Bright Horizons back around her first birthday. Full story here.)

We went to Montessori B next. I was really curious to see Hubby's reaction. It was probably the most "unique" of our three options, which can be a good thing or a bad thing!

The director took us into one of the classrooms and spent probably 30 minutes talking to us about Montessori, showing us the various materials available to the students, etc. Hubby seemed interested, but I wasn't sure if he was just being polite. Finally, the director left the room to get something else to show us and Hubby mouthed to me, "I like this place!" After we wrapped up at the school, we went out to lunch to debrief, and Hubby couldn't stop raving about it. He liked it more than Bright Horizons -- and after that second visit, I did as well.

Finally, we visited Montessori A. We had a less-than-impressive tour with one of the staff members. (My initial tour had been with one of the directors.) She admitted that she came from a traditional daycare background and really struggled to explain Montessori concepts and how they were implemented at her school. To give A a fair shake, I did explain to Hubby that the directors at A could talk about Montessori just as articulately as the director at B had done, but it didn't really matter. We were both completely sold on Montessori B.

So... Littles starts at Montessori B on Monday. I'm very excited about it. I think she'll really enjoy being in a larger environment, and I think she'll learn a lot. I am nervous about the transition, and I definitely think the first few weeks will be tough, with lots of tears at drop-off. But hopefully, she'll settle in quickly and start loving it!

Preschool options

This is my ninth post in a series on finding child care.

As I have explained previously, we started looking for a full-time preschool for Littles in early 2009, after her sitter informed us that she was pregnant and would not be able to care for Littles starting in the summer of 2009.

Coincidentally, our neighbors have a son who is just a few weeks younger than Littles, and they were looking for a preschool as well. They gave us recommendations for two excellent Montessori schools in the area, which I will call Montessori A and Montessori B.

I could easily devote an entire blog post -- or, heck, an entire blog -- to explaining the Montessori philosophy, so I'll try to be brief. It's an alternative educational method that is child-centered, rather than teacher-directed. Children are allowed to choose the educational activities that they participate in, with guidance from their teachers, of course. If you're interested in learning more, I found this "Montessori 101" guide to be an excellent introduction.

One important thing to realize about Montessori is that it is a philosophy, not a chain or a franchise, so individual Montessori schools can differ drastically. For that reason, I knew it was important to take a close look at both schools and see what I thought.

I had a 30-minute discussion with the director of Montessori A over the phone before I visited, and I loved everything I heard. She was able to clearly articulate the school's educational philosophy, and it sounded wonderful. She also put a strong emphasis on active parental involvement, both in the actual educational experience and in non-educational areas such as providing healthy food, ensuring that kids get plenty of sleep, etc. Finally, Montessori A had two campuses, one close to our home and another close to our sitter's home. That meant it might be possible for Littles to start out with three mornings a week in late winter/spring (with her sitter picking her up in the afternoon), then move to full-time in the summer, which was a nice option.

I looked briefly at Montessori B, but eliminated it early on because: a) it was significantly further away from our home than the other options (although still closer than our sitter's house) and b) it started at age 2, not 18 months, so starting Littles part-time in late winter/spring was not an option.

Then, I happened to attend a "preschool fair." (Basically, it was set up in a room at the local library, and a bunch of area preschools sent representatives. So you could go from table to table and talk to different preschools about their programs.) The director of Montessori B flagged me down and started talking to me about her school. Something about it immediately appealed to me. The director was just as articulate about B's educational philosophy as A's director had been, but there were some subtle differences. For example, A's director had bragged that most of her four-year-olds were reading. This made me wonder, "What about your four-year-olds who aren't reading? How do you feel about them?"

See, while I would love for Littles to be able to read at age four, I also don't see it as necessarily being a "goal" or a point of pride. The A-number-one most important thing to me right now is not that Littles learns specific skills (e.g. reading, math) but that she learns to love learning. I figure if she has a love of learning instilled in her at an early age, the specific skills will follow in time.

I had figured this out in my head long before talking to B's director, so it was neat to hear her talk about instilling the love of learning as well. She did mention that most of her four-year-olds are reading but was quick to follow up and say, "We work with each child individually on reading, and go at whatever pace they need." I just got a very good feeling from her, all around.

After that talk, I put Montessori B back on our list.

To round out the list, I also decided to look at a more traditional preschool/daycare. I chose the same Bright Horizons center that we had almost sent Littles to when we first moved to Dallas, since Hubby and I had both really liked it. I talked at length with the director about its educational philosophy and how it differed from Montessori. It was more child-centered than most of the other chain daycares I visited, which had a prescribed curriculum dictated by the central corporate office. At Bright Horizons, teachers were encouraged to come up with their own lesson plans based on the interests of their students. I definitely felt that the curriculum was well-thought-through and structured enough to ensure kids were learning while still allowing plenty of time for fun and play.

Another benefit of Bright Horizons was that they had immediate part-time openings, so Littles could potentially go two full days a week through late winter/spring (spending the other three days with her sitter) and then move to full-time in the summer.

I looked at a few other daycares and Montessori schools in the area, but these three stood out as my favorites. Hubby and I took a few days to go back and visit all three together, and then we made our final decision.

In my next post, I'll talk about which school we chose and why.