|
|
PeekABoo Day Care: A Public Service Announcement.Sep 04 '07 (Updated Mar 20 '10) Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Personal Care
The Bottom Line Letting Go, The First Day
I may have mentioned that I’m a Dad… a pretty new dad. I try to keep my private life quiet and understated but somewhere along the line it might have slipped. May have been the few reviews on kids books or possibly the one of the Intellitainer that gave it away, not sure where but I’m sort of bad when it comes to secrets. Anyway, Nubby (as we call her) or “Bop” when I’m feeling puckish (as in “Hailee Bop”) just hit the one year mark, which means that my wife has to go back to work soon. Which means that we needed to set Nub up in a daycare. For everyone in the States who have to go back to work after 6 weeks of maternity leave (or 3 months if you’re lucky), I would appreciate it if you could get the fake, sarcastic sympathy for my wife out of the way now and allow me to continue my story. Yes, I can hear you. I am, after all, standing right here. “Oh, you poor girl, you have to go back to work after 1 whole year off? How are you ever going to cope?” We don’t make up the rules, we just play by them so if you’re finished now, I’ll keep going. The population in our little hamlet is esplodin as Desi Arnaz would say. Three years back it was about forty thousand and ten years from now it will be about one hundred and fifty thousand. That’s a metric crap load of babies. Not to make too bad a joke out of it but the pregnant women on my street definitely outweigh the non-pregnant ones. So we aren’t stupid, the day that we found out that Lee was pregnant with Nub we signed up on a waiting list for daycare, which was already over flowing. The one we decided on was a little operation called PeekABoo Child Care Centers. Luckily, they added a second location so we were given first right of refusal. They have 16 locations located in Brampton, Burlington, Cambridge, Kitchener, Milton, Mississauga, Newmarket, Oakville, Orangeville and Vaughan. They are, what I would consider, the upper echelon of daycare. Two hundred and fifty bucks a week, a cook on sight who makes all meals and snacks (so when it says on her daily report sheet that Nub had a muffin, it means a fresh, warm one, right from the oven), divisions that separate infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers and Kindergartener’s (if that’s an actual word), theme weeks and guest speakers. They say that the child/teacher ratio can go as high as 5 to 1 in infants and toddlers but at the moment it appears to be almost 1 for 1. Indoor and out door activities for the Infants (and any child up to 18 months is considered an infant) include multiple learning toys, a full playground, a water park, soft, comfy cushy things to crawl over for safe exploration, communication through sign language, music, crafts, regulated meal times for both child and teacher and next year they are creating an outdoor splash pad. Once a year, the school brings in a top notch professional photographer with a tickle trunk of costumes and takes photos so breath taking that NOT buying them is not an option. I've seen beautiful Geisha robes, fairy costumes with ornate wings and an authentic 1910 Gatsby-esque dress with a simple sun hat and a string of pearls that will make my 1 year old look like she's wandering around a turn of the century garden party as a breeze blows off the lake. Color, Sepia and black and white prints are all included. They're expensive.... but holy cow are they worth it. The latest guest speaker was Robert Munsch, famed author of such outstanding children’s books as Love You Forever and The Paper Bag Princess who, by the way, shouldn’t be confused with Edvard Munch who is the famed painter of such disturbing portraits as The Scream and Vampire and isn’t nearly as appropriate for small, malleable pre-school imaginations... unless you are looking to raise some truly twisted and deranged individual. back to it... All teachers have some sort of children’s education training and at least two teachers per class have degrees in E.C.E. Finally, and potentially the biggest selling feature that PeekABoo offers, is Video Over The Internet. In short, each room is equipped with two cameras and parents can log in on their personal computers (once they have been given the appropriate room codes, I.D’s and password) and check in to watch how their kids are doing, how they are interacting, how they are coping with being away from the house. You can watch them eat and spend some time studying the dynamics. It’s fascinating and addictive. I believe I've stated before that I firmly feel my child to be vastly superior to all others and therefore more than worth this type of attention. Nub is sharp as a whip, very pretty, extremely attentive for a baby and has a goofy, playful sense of humor that can only be a reflection of me. She crawls around with a blue bucket on her head and likes the sound it makes when she bonks in to a wall (or the dog, or mom, or what ever). Yes... I know... I can hear you all screaming that every parent believes their child to be the brightest, smartest, most special and beautiful child in the world... however the main difference between them and me is that I am correct and they are not. I can say with a clinical, cold, detached yet truly honest perspective that my child is better than all others. I’m sorry if I have in any way hurt your feelings but someone has to be the best at everything... it just happens to be my Nubby. Sorry... I have digressed however now that we have cleared this up... My wife, despite any exterior that she may project to the contrary, is a delicate little flower. She hurts easy. As she likes to say at times when she’s tired or has had a drink “I’m just little...” She is a perfect candidate for being a stay at home mom, unfortunately it just isn’t feasible for us at this moment. She has thrived off the last year with Nub, staying at home with her, playing with her, taking her for walks, spending extended week-ends up at the trailer with her, swimming with her. I’ve also watched her mildly agonize over the milestones that Hailee has achieved. Each new thing Nub learns is an end of an mini-era. The joy that Lee got when Nub got her first swimming certificate (or crawled her first step, ate her first solid food, climbed her first step, stood un-aided, made her first successful attempt at communication- the signs for doggy and more) was tempered by the bittersweet feeling that Nub has transcended a stage in her life. Never again will she... (insert fond memory here). Wisely, Lee signed Nub up for daycare this week... 1 week before she had to go back to work herself. I watched the approaching day with interest and treated my wife a bit more tenderly that normal. Last Tuesday we went to visit the facilities. They were awesome. They have at least half a dozen things that I need to buy for her. I spent easily half an hour with Nub in a multi colored, inner-tube looking thing on wheels, whipping her up and down the halls, letting her bounce and careen off the walls while her (and her teacher to be) giggled her head off. ...and then came the time when we had to sign the actual paperwork. Nub sat on one of those tiny chairs that only a toddler can fit in to with a set on jingle bells in one hand, a maraca in the other and a tambourine on her head. She was drunk on the attention and fun we had been having and was trying to clap her hands together, laugh and make music at the same time. I looked at Lee who was fixated on her and saw a familiar look on her face. “Are you OK?” Her eyes were lost and starting to water. “Can I have the car keys for a sec?” “Of course love...” She went out the front door shaking a bit. When she felt like she could come back in, she took a deep breath and quietly sat back down at the table with us. Neither Nub nor the teacher seemed to notice that she had left. “Are we ready?” asked Nub’s soon to be teacher, holding a stack of papers. With those three words, Lee broke like a wet paper bag filled of rocks. She laughed at herself the whole time but that didn’t stop the tears from squirting and soon she had the teacher and 3 other women crying along with her and swapping heart breaking stories. I looked on with a resigned amusement, but Nub being a more honest individual, cut straight to the chase and laughed out loud at them. “Silly beings. I’m not gonna be like them some day, am I?” she asked me with her eyes. “I’m afraid you might Nub.” I said shaking my head, “It’s called estrogen which unfortunately, you have a lot of” We finished what we had to do there and went home, Lee laughing at herself still. Today was Nub’s first day at PeekABoo. Lee dropped her off at about eight thirty. At ten thirty I figured it was time to give her a call. “How are you doing?” “Fine.” She sounded distracted. “You done anything fun?” “Not really.” I heard some keyboard keys tap in the background “You haven’t left the computer for the past 2 hours, have you?” “No.” “It’s ok.” “She looks like she’s having a lot of fun.” “She probably is.” “Lunch is 11:30.” “I’ll probably check it out.” “I think one of her teachers just gave her a kiss on the cheek. They aren’t supposed to but it was really cute to see.” “I was wondering about that... I thought it looked like that too...” Damn... “You’ve been watching too?” “Yea, pretty much constantly. I should be doing the paperwork for the Borderware deal but I figure I can get to it later.” “Love ya.” “Love you too pup, you’ll be fine. I’ll see you in a bit” I have to watch, at least for a while. How many first days of school does your kid have… and how many people actually get to witness it. Man, it’s something special. I’d rate PeekABoo five stars if I had a way to do it. At the moment, someone else is sitting in the innertube toy that she spent so much time playing with on her first visit and she's eyeing them with mild suspicion and contempt. (* and here we are, over a year later and I'm updating this to let you know that this place still ranks 5 stars. As of October 2008 Hailee is 26 months and can pull things out of a box and count to 15. She knows her alphabet. This seemed a little advanced for me so Lee and I put off moving because we knew that we would not be able to find comperable daycare anywhere else. When Hailee graduated from infant to Toddler, her teacher cried at the prospect of not being able to see her everyday. They genuinely care. The link (should you wish to look them up) is http://www.peekabookid.com/. Her brother Coleton will be joining her there in March of 09) Updated again March 18th 2010: So apparently the owner of the chain just spotted this review and made mention to the Peek-a-boo Supervisor that it would be cool if I updated it. Lee-ann, if you read this, here ya go. Let’s start by saying that we have since cancelled the video internet offering that the school has. It was great to have in the beginning, and we got a lot of mileage out of it, but after a while we weren’t using it anymore, so we gave it the boot. It wasn’t the main reason for us choosing the center anyway… just a nice bonus. Hailee will be turning 4 at the end of this summer (God, time flies) and we will end up keeping her in Peek-a-boo through kindergarten. To best describe her personality I have to tell you a short story. The other day, she ran up to me and repeatedly insisted that I look at her bum. When I asked why it was ever so important for me to do this, she yelled out “BECAUSE IT’S CRACKED!” My deadpan silence and blank stare went for a full three count and before I could raise a bemused eyebrow and say “you’re kidding me… right?” she brayed laughter in my face and ran out of the room. I offered my wife a small apology seeing as how she has lost the war and tried to give her a few words of encouragement. Maybe our son will take after her, although from what I’ve seen it’s not very likely. Hailee is a joker, a comedienne, talkative, energetic, she bores easy and at times she has trouble with her “listening ears” and her teachers have had nothing but positive encouragement for her. The level of education that they have offered is exceptional, they have the patience of saints and even on her worst day it is obvious that they truly care for her. If she was ever behind in any stage, they never got down on her. She loves waking up every morning and going to school. It was a foregone conclusion that we were going to send her brother there when he was born. His name is Coleton. With a perfectly round head, wide eyes and toddler comb-over, he’s a dead ringer for Charlie Brown, if Charlie had been a real person. Being a manly man, with manly traits and manly ideals, I tried to give him a manly sounding nickname right from the start. Cole was good. Colt was better- it’s a beer, it’s a gun, it’s a horse… how much more manly can you get? Short of calling him “Hunter” you couldn’t. However, due to a complete inability to say his name properly, it was Hailee that got to give him the name that he uses on a daily basis. That name is Coco. Coco… My last name is Chew. Coco Chew…. Sounds like the pairing of a junk boat captain and a perfume heiress. Sounds like an early 80’s wrestler touring the Mexican circuit. Sounds like a particularly nasty candy or breakfast cereal (Greaeaeat… mom bought Coco Chews again…) As expected, I wander off topic yet again. Coco is, of course, a different kid than his sister. Different strengths, weaknesses, ways of showing his sense of humor (and boy, has he got one), different in almost every way except one. He, like his sister is very well adjusted. Like his sister he is affectionate and happy. Like his sister, he isn’t prone to tantrums. Like his sister, he laughs and dances. He has a spark… a twinkle. As much as I would love to take credit for this, I can’t fully. I know a lot of it falls to them, his guardians during the day, the ones we have entrusted with that which we hold most precious. He is loved and it is obvious. Teachers who use to be in charge of him miss him and lament how fast he is growing. Teachers who are currently in charge of him agonize over every bump and bruise and with my boy there are a ton since he never really watches where he’s going and takes off at full speed looking in other directions. Teachers that we don’t know, ones we have never met at all, call out his name with excitement and affection when they see him in the hall. I smile every time I pick him up. Is Peek-a-boo expensive? Yes… and to tell the truth in this economy, expensive is painful. For what we pay, we could have a mortgage on a second house. Are my children worth it? Is their well being worth it? Is knowing that they are spending their most formative years in an environment that radiates love and care, stability, education, guidance, a nurturing of body and mind worth it? You're damn straight they’re worth it. And every night when I sing them to sleep and they either quietly groove on the tune (Sweet Baby James for Coleton) or sing along with me (Tonight You Belong To Me for Hailee) that worth is hammered home repeatedly. We have precious little time to do this, so lets do it right. “I know (I know), with the dawn That you will be gone, But tonight, you belong to me. Just to little old me.”  |
| Read all comments (21)|Write your own comment |
