Little Hearts

My oldest son is 3 1/2. Such a sweet little boy... but he is all boy, so he often gets into mischief and that is fine. When boys make mischief, they make noise. Noise is good, you know what they are up to when they are making noise.

For the past 3 weeks or so, my sweet little monkey has been urging me to be a stay home mommy. Every single morning, and sometimes at night, we would have a conversation similar to this:

LM: Mommy, do I have to go to *******?
Me: Yes, sweetie.
LM: But why?
Me: Because mommy and daddy have to pay bills, and we like to have cars to go places in, and we like to take you and your brother on fun trips.
LM: But why can't you be a stay home mommy? Why do we have to go to daycare?
Me: Because we can't do all of these fun things and have a place to live and a car to drive if I don't have a job to help daddy with the bills.
LM: But I want you to be a stay home mommy. (pouts)

Then he carries on about his morning ritual of getting dressed, petting his hamsters, and going out to the car to go to daycare.

Yesterday, we found out part of the reason he may have been so persistent with this. His daycare provider sent us a note stating she has to close effective the first part of April.

This normally wouldn't be a big deal, but this precious little angel is a feeler. When someone is stressing about something, even if they are acting normal on the outside, he can detect it. I suspect he noticed she was upset about something and, given he cares about his daycare provider a great deal, he didn't like to see her upset when he couldn't help.

Poor little guy.

So, now we face a real battle ahead. Finding daycare in this town is like trying to find parking downtown... it's slim to non-existent. We have some very real needs that need to be met.

1. Daycare provider must offer a loving and nurturing environment.
2. Daycare provider beliefs must be similar to our own as to help with meeting our goals and teachings.
3. Daycare provider needs to be private. Our sons have only ever been to a private daycare - which has allowed them to play and grow together. I can't express how upsetting it would be to take them to a cookie cutter center that has segregated care for each age group.
4. Daycare provider needs to offer pre-K curriculum.
5. Daycare provider should help our sons grow in their vocabulary, education, and social skills.

These are a huge deal to us. We want our sons to be together... we want their learning to continue. We don't want to hold them back by drastically changing their daycare environment any more than necessary.

We don't cut out any options - private daycare, nanny, even the possibility of my having to change to a different shift at work if needed in order to make sure they are properly cared for at all times of the day. This is something that I really struggle with. My heart is with my children. I want to give them the very best possible.

Sometimes the very best is very difficult to obtain.