Changing of the Guard

We've moved Mather from her old daycare to a preschool close to our house. We have not, however, given up on our co-op preschool search.

Mather started attending daycare when she was about 4 months old. We took a little break after Papasan decided to start his Master's program. Since then she's been going on a mostly two-day per week schedule for the past year-and-a-half.

With our move in late October to the Outer Sunset, the commute back to our old neighborhood for daycare was starting to get a bit burdensome. We did recently add bicycle commuting to the repertoire, which did make it a little easier, but that's only weather-permitting.

We also recognized that Mather didn't seem to be bringing home new skills anymore. In the past, we'd often felt like she was learning from the behavior and abilities of the older kids at daycare. Once the official school year began in the fall, Mather had actually become one of the older kids.

We did have some reservations about changing her routine. She was really building friendships and talking about her playmates. She would certainly have a learning curve at preschool and would once again be the youngest kid on the block. Also, this is only a temporary move because we still hope to switch to a co-op preschool this fall.

Part of the decision was lead by Mather's immediate comfort at the preschool, as evidenced by her playing, just a few minutes after we arrived for our tour:


There are two playrooms (plus a castle cubby) and an outdoor play space:


The programs offered by the preschool are also impressive - dance and movement instruction, a weekly bookmobile visit, puppet shows, lots of arts and crafts, visits from student teachers in child development studies - so much more than daycare can offer. And, at a better price. We are only paying $4 more per week to have her at preschool for three days per week, instead of two days at daycare. This is especially important because I am now back to work full-time (I was only working 4 days per week from May-December) and Papasan is underway on his thesis.

Mather started at her new school on January 2nd. She seems to be adjusting well - eating, playing, napping, all the important toddler stuff.

On her first day, she came home with a beautiful finger paint drawing of a snowman. Every day she comes home with some cute art project. Our fridge is going to get full fast!