Nursery School

Since Sadie is a late ’09 baby she’ll qualify for school NEXT September and applications are due early next year. I’m looking forward to getting her out of the house and into programs with Kids but the only thing we know for sure is that I want her in an afternoon program so that I have some involvement in her education, I want to be there after school to pick her up.
We have two choices and ultimately it may come down to the school we get into. God forbid we don’t get into EITHER but that seems highly unlikely. Option #1 is a 3 day a week program that runs for 2.5 hours in either the morning or afternoon and is a very affordable at $250/month. This will be the hard one to get into since its cheap and even my rich neighbours love cheap. Option #2 is a full half day program running 5 days a week and is $700/month. Ultimately we’re talking a $15/day difference between the two programs and when you look at it that way neither is really that expensive.
The issue is with “free” childcare, should we be spending $450 more to send her to the half day program instead of part time. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of our arrangement? Also, Option #2 is Montessori and we’d likely want to keep her in the program for JK and SK as well. That’s an investment of $21,000 over 3 years when we could spend $2500 for the part time program and then send her to JK/SK for free at our local school. I suppose we could also send her to Montessori for just the pre-casa program and then switch to public school but that will mean she’ll have been to 3 schools by first grade (our schools do not have kindergarten in the same school as where she will attend first grade).
It’s a difficult decision. On one hand I want to say Sadie’s education is important (which it is) and we SHOULD be investing that extra money but at the same time $700 per month will add up if/when I’m on maternity leave next. Also, I fear I’m being drawn to the adorable uniforms at the Montessori and/or I’m being snobby and wanting to put Sadie in a program we can realistically afford moving forward (ie. when it jumps to 16K per year). I mean, if we only had one…… but……
Is anyone else looking into Nursery school or do you plan on keeping your current daycare provider right until elementary school? Thoughts, opinions?



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Growing like a WEED

Within the last couple of weeks Sadie has shot up like a weed. It's surreal to look back at pictures of her when she was smaller. Who was that kid? I barely remember. I mean, this was her this time last summer:



Who is that little baby?
Here she is at Christmas:


And now:


Same table, same Kid.

Her attitude is growing like a weed too. I'd heard someone say that "3 is actually worse than 2". If this is true, we're F***ed because 19 months is pretty intense.
Sadie is a lay on the floor, red faced, screaming/crying tantrum thrower. Try to pick her up and she contorts her body in ways I didn't think possible. I'm also pretty sure her arm can rotate 360, twice.
Fun times ahead... fun times...


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Random stuff

-For the past 4 nights I have worked on Sadie’s room for 2-3 hours after I’ve put her to bed. For all of my hard work I have one wall, the interior of a closet and her bi-fold doors ¾ painted and I need to go and buy more paint. It’s seems like its taking FOREVER and way too much paint. Considering only ¼ of the project is done, I feel like I should have at least ½ can of paint left. NOT loving the low VOC paint we’ve purchased. It clearly doesn’t go on the walls well.

-My new meds are making me an insomniac. After I finish painting, I’ll shower, and watch TV/surf the net until 1:00 am. It’s been AGES since I’ve been able to stay up past 9:00 pm.

-On the topic of new meds, my GP gave me my anxiety meds for flying. She’s prescribed Klonopin and has given me 8 pills. This means I’ll take them the day before and the day of flying, on each end of the trip. I want to try them out before the vacation to see how I react but with only 4 days worth I don’t want to use them up. Does anyone out there have experience with Klonopin? From reading up online it sounds like its some serious shit. Is this overkill? I haven’t even had a panic attack about flying yet. I mean, there have been a couple of “I can’t do this” moments but nothing with a physical response that would require sedation.

-And Disney, the Mouse got us AGAIN. I’ve upgraded our “not really free dining” which has now cost us $700 from the original “room only” rate of $60. For $1100/week we are getting Park Passes, Hotel and Dining (1 table, 1 quick service, 2 snacks per person). That is the rate we would normally pay WITHOUT dining so I guess it is free when you think of it that way… but still. The good news is that the first week we are going must be wildly unpopular because I was able to get almost every dining reservation I wanted. We are booked into several character meals including dining at Cinderella’s castle. That dinner alone, free with the dining plan, would have cost us $125.


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Stella Joy

I want to share this blog with you and I hope that you will pass it on as well. I know most of my readers have 10x the followers I have.
Stella is a sweet little 2 yo girl who has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I came across her story on facebook as we are connected through mutual friends (although not directly, we do not know them). Her family lives in Toronto and she has two moms.
After the diagnosis last month her moms took extended leaves of absences from their jobs to spend time with her before she leaves them. It's sad, so terribly sad and everytime I think about them I cry (like right now).
They are accepting donations to help since they are not working. I have donated because I know if we had to leave work it would be a struggle and working during a time like this would be impossible. Please pass this on...
http://www.stellabrunermethven.com/


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Our Little Princess

Can you tell I'm getting excited about Disney?