And now Tom and I are quite torn – in fact, we’re nigh paralyzed with indecision – so I thought I’d solicit the magical intertubes for additional opinions. (As a parent I have learned that additional opinions are wonderfully interesting, if frequently helpful only to make one feel guilty about not following one or another camp’s advice. Not dissing you, just saying – there’s always a way to castigate yourself after the fact, and I usually find it.)

Current daycare PROS:
awesome program
fabulous teachers
I visit at lunchtime to nurse Amelia
close to work in case of emergency or routine dr appointments
3:1 student teacher ratio
fun toys
good for pushing milestones (we’re bad at that)
older kids to help Amelia learn from example

Current daycare CONS:
hella expensive, for us
Amelia spends 1-1.5 hours a day in the car
lots of exposure to colds, etc – Amelia gets sick a lot and then we have to stay home from work unexpectedly which sucks
there has been a lot of teachers moving through Amelia’s classroom in the past few months – I’d like it better if she could mostly work with just one or two

Nannyshare PROS:
less expensive – maybe, possibly just barely reasonable enough for us to have another kid without having to quit one job
Amelia spends less time in the car
only one other kiddo to share germs with
more adult attention (2:1 ratio, not 3:1)

Nannyshare CONS:
no nursing at lunchtime – I wouldn’t see her from 7ish to 5ish, ack!
paying someone to care for Amelia during our commute time
farther drive home in case of emergency or dr appointments
only the developmental toys we currently own or might buy in the future – don’t laugh, it adds up and we’re ignorant
no older kids for Amelia to draft behind, development-wise

What do you think? The lack of lunchtime visits is a big con for me, honestly, and I would even miss dropping her at school every morning, though I bet Tom wouldn’t miss her crying all the way home half the time. Her school is such a good one, with really dedicated, wise teachers, that I wouldn’t even consider another school – but who knows what kind of awesome nanny we might find?

Argh. Thoughts?

Multi-tasking: standing and holding a paci!

Another supercute thing that I hear about from Amelia’s teacher(s) is how much she and a little boy in her class, L, enjoy each other’s company.  They regularly have “lunch dates” now, in which they both sit at the baby-sized table and eat, babbling to each other all the while.  Lately they’ve gotten even fonder of each other, passing toys back and forth across the ballet bar that they like to stand at.

Amelia likes to hang upside-down after nursing, and L really enjoys crawling over to touch her face when she’s upside down, which Amelia finds hilarious.  L, interestingly, hates being upside-down, grabbing at the adult’s shirt who tries to suspend him in such a precarious position.

Amelia has started moving her fingers up and down over her mouth while making noise, which comes out like “B-B-B-B-B-B-B,” (someday I swear I will get it on video) and L thinks that is just FASCINATING.  He loves watching her do this, and can’t seem to figure it out himself, even though he is older by a couple of months and crawling and signing and things.  Today, I’m told, he stuck his finger in Amelia’s mouth while trying to decipher the technique.  Not to be outdone, she stuck her finger in his mouth, too!

They both get irritated with the 5-month-old baby, M, who is crying a lot lately (my theory is growth spurt).  And evidently, Amelia and L fight sometimes too.  One teacher told me she watched them playing happily with different toys one day, sitting next to each other, when Amelia got mad that she couldn’t reach L’s toy (which was too high up on the wall for her) and started to cry.  L got mad about Amelia crying and started crying too, and they both scooted to where they were back to back, presumably crying because the other was “being mean.”

It’s so interesting to see how interactions of little, little people bears so much resemblance to the interactions of large people.

Let me read you this part; it's great.

Two of the best ones, lately:

All the kids were outside with their teachers: Amelia’s class and the class older than hers. Miss Cortney, who is a younger teacher in Amelia’s class, was hula-hooping to show some of the older kids how it’s done. Well, Amelia thought that hula-hooping was just. utterly. hilarious. She started laughing, slapping her knees with her hands, and laughed so hard, that she leaned back, lost her balance, and fell over backward – still laughing uncontrollably. Even after Miss Cortney stopped with her crazy hula-hooping craziness, Amelia sat and periodically laughed to herself, as if she was remembering a funny joke. “Heh, hula hoops. Heh! Hilarious.”

Just yesterday, Amelia was one of only two kids in the classroom with Miss Cortney (the other morning teacher is on vacation in Columbia). When I finished nursing her, the other little boy was getting his lunch – black beans and avocado – so I put Amelia down in the other seat at the table and left. Miss Cortney told me today that Amelia was squealing and slapping her hands on the table so much, clearly enjoying herself but agitated, that Cortney thought to offer her some avocado as well. (It was avocado that I had brought from home.) So Amelia and L sat at the infant-sized table with their teacher, both eating avocado, and had a long conversation together. First Amelia would babble along, and then L would babble and gesture, and then Amelia would respond. They never spoke over each other, and seemed by all accounts to be discussing something quite entertaining. Needless to say, kids their age rarely hold conversations, so Cortney thought it was pretty remarkable, to say nothing of the adorable.

I’m aware I miss out on things when I leave Amelia at school, but it’s lovely to at least get regaled with the fun happenings rather than not knowing at all what she gets up to.