Daycare

Today we finalized our decision for a daycare for Sofia. Even though she won't start until September 21st, we have been looking at places for a couple of months. We decided on a home daycare run by a really sweet Russian couple named Lena & Peter. It's about 10 minutes from our house. I will drop her off at 8am and Nelson will pick her up by 6pm. They have 12 kids - Sofi will be the youngest. They have a nursery in their house with enough cribs for the babies under 2 to sleep in and a huge backyard with tons of toys and play equipment. Lena was a teacher back in Russia and Peter was a volleyball coach so Lena does the lessons and Peter shows the kids sports & exercises. Lena will be Sofi's primary caregiver and you can just tell she loves Sofi already. She also cooks all of the meals and will make Sofi baby food as soon as she's old enough to eat but not old enough for solids.
We visited 3 times, including tonight when we went over to sign the contract. We just got a really good vibe from them. Sofi went to her really easily and smiled at Peter, who gave her a rattle to play with and called her "Princess". I also called a bunch of their references and the moms I talked to raved about how great the daycare is. They said their kids all thrived there - some of their kids are already in grade school and doing are great because of Lena's teaching. I could not find one bad thing about them. The price was also so much better than the larger day care centers, a bit higher than other home daycares but for what they provide, and hte fact they've been around for over 15 years, gave them the advantage for sure.
So Nel has 7 more weeks - and they are holding Sofi's spot until then!