We are adults

I posted before about being an adult. Most days I do not consider myself an adult. Yes, I own my home; have a degree (almost two), married for 7 years, and have a career. However, this does not make me feel like an adult, as least not what I thought being an adult would feel like. However, yesterday I felt like an adult.

My Sweetie and I took off from work to find a daycare for our June Bug. No, that is not correct; we set out to find a school for her. We only had one appointment for the day and all others we planned to do drop-ins. We went to seven schools. Remarkably, four were of the same chain. All were within about 5 miles from our house. The rate for infant care is higher than for toddlers. We found the prices ranging from $695-$905 a month. This was not a shocker as I have heard of some infant care being over a grand a month.

After seeing the first school, the one with the appointment, and another school that we always loved the look of the outside, we decided to regroup at Starbucks. The schools could not have been more different. My Sweetie and I were on the exact same page with our opinions. This was a wonderful feeling. We then headed to four more schools (three under the same name as our first appointment). We liked all of them. However, we had to be very meticulous and decided that two of these four made the final cut. By this time, it was after one o’clock and I was getting hungry. Lunch was in order. My Sweetie and I ate a nice lunch while discussing our options. We loved that we kept going back to this one chain. My Sweetie looked up at me with teary eyes and said, “I want her here now”. It was so sweet. He loves this little girl so much. Only one more stop until our journey found completion. This was the only real threat to the chain that we were looking into. Of course, this was the $905 school. However, it did not have the same feel as the first school. We headed home, filled out the paper work, drove back to the first school, and paid our $50 for our name to be added to the waiting list for three Stepping Stone Schools.

The biggest disappointment was the number of schools without an infant curriculum. The school we chose has lesson plans for the infants with sign language included. This was a big requirement for our JuneBug. Another neat thing was that we did not sign her up as “Baby Tolleson”, we used her name. My Sweetie turned to me and said “She better be a girl now”.

Yesterday proved that we really are adults. However, most importantly it showed, once again, what a great partnership my Sweetie and I have. I know of many couples that would argue or become edgy with the emotional day that choosing a daycare can bring. However, that wasn't the case with us at all. We did not argue, disagree, or even snap at each other. We held hands, smiled, talked, asked questions, listened, and had a wonderful day. The best part is that we feel confident where our precious child will be during the work day.