For those of you that work full time and aren't lucky enough to have a relative crazy enough to watch your kid(s) for free, you are faced with the hell that is daycare. Don't get me wrong, daycare is a wonderful place and my daughter loves it, but like anything else, it has its drawbacks.
My main pain with daycare is the illnesses it brings. MY GOD there are so many and they come so often. If you send your kid to group care, they will get sick. A lot. Like a whole lot. Then you will get sick. A lot. Like a whole lot. Like you will think your family's immune system has been replaced with that of a 95-year-old cancer patient’s. It SUCKS.
When your kids get sick, they will still play and laugh and eat. When you get sick, you will feel like death is a wonderful option to get out of what you currently feel like. After about a year, your kids will stop getting sick as much. A little after that, you will stop. Before that time, you will get the flu a few times, the poops innumerable times, colds, pink eye, upper respiratory infections, roseola, fevers, hand, foot and mouth disease, etc. Yay!
Basically, your days of calling in sick to work so you can drink beer at the game all day are over. Now, you will be out of sick days before the 4th of July even hits. Frivolous sick days are gone, replaced with the need to swap your vacation and holidays for days filled with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting. Aren't kids great?
Funny timing on this one. I provide group daycare. In my home. I go through more Lysol wipes in a week than a normal household does in a month. I actually had to call my daycare parents Sunday to tell them "I am pretty sure I have bronchitis and cannot get into the Dr until tomorrow afternoon to get an antibiotic. I can watch you kids tomorrow if you need me to, but I wanted you to be able to make an informed choice."
ReplyDeleteTo say the least, the parents opted to keep their kids home.
Thanks for sharing, Tessey. No matter how clean a daycare keeps it, kids are going to get sick. They are like little walking germ collectors and this is the only time they are good at sharing!
ReplyDeleteOur foster son has been in our home for 3 weeks. He came to us with a cold and ear infection (and promptly gave the cold to us) and last night I started feeling peuny again. The boy is fine of course.
ReplyDeleteand yes 3 days after coming to us, he was enrolled in a group daycare.
I just had my thrid baby and couldn't afford daycare for three, so we're trying to make it work with me staying home. My older two had been at the same daycare for 4 years, and the other day my daughter casually mentioned, "When we were outside and someone didn't want to stop playing to go inside to potty, they'd just go in the sink." Meaning the sink of the plastic play house out on the playground. WHAT?!?!??! So for 4 years I was bringing you home from an outdoor sewer and didn't know it???? So. Incredibly. Gross.
ReplyDelete