Child care changes

A few weeks ago, my nanny broke some news: she's going back to school full-time and can no longer care for Ava.

She was scared to tell me. "Do you hate me?" she asked. "I still want to be part of the family."

I hugged her and told her it was fine, that school was very important and that I would love to have her babysit regularly on the weekends, whenever she could.

Secretly (not-so-secretly...), I'm relieved. My nanny means well, but she lets my kid's mood dictate her own. If Ava is cranky, my nanny gets flustered. If Ava is happy, my nanny is thrilled. If Ava is teething, my nanny is the one who's in pain. There's no need for that.

So, I was faced with a tough decision. Go with another nanny or make the switch to daycare.

On my neighborhood parents group (yep, I joined that on purpose), I heard about a new daycare literally two blocks from my office, two miles/five minutes from my home. While I had a nanny job opened on Sittercity, I took a tour of the daycare just to check things out.

And I loved it.

This place seems great. Their whole philosophy is that daycare should be as flexible as in-home care. They don't charge late fees. They let you switch between full-time and part-time at your whim (all that changes is your invoice). They let you transfer temporarily to their other locations if, say, you travel for work and your whole family decides to move to Montreal for two months while you work out of local offices. They stick to your child's routines. They'll store your stroller if you walk there and don't want to lug it to your office. They teach sign language and Spanish. They probably do a lot of other cool shit that I'm forgetting.

And? They're slightly cheaper than what we have been paying our nanny.

Decision made. Ava's going to be a daycare kid, come June.