School Shopping

If there is one bit of advice experienced mothers continually share with me, it's find a daycare facility for your babies as soon as you find out you're pregnant. We're slightly behind that curve, being that the Wonder Twins are almost 17 weeks old, but we're working hard to play catch up. We want to make sure that when my 12 weeks of maternity leave are over, we have a great, safe place for the twins to stay while Geof and I are at work.

That's why Geof picked me up from work today, and we spent my lunch break at Children's Discovery Center in Raleigh on a tour. Here's a photo of the facility below.

We decided to tour it for several key reasons. First, it came highly recommended by three of Geof's colleagues from WRAL. One of them is the station's no-nonsense troubleshooter reporter. If she thinks the center is good enough for her kids, I'm certain it's good enough for our kids. Second, the facility offers an a la carte plan. That means we can drop the Wonder Twins off for a few hours on the days when I work days and Geof works nights, and leave them for the full day when Geof and I both work days. Most centers do not offer that kind of flexibility. It will end up saving us a lot of money. Third, it is located on Avent Ferry Road in Raleigh, which is not far from WRAL and NCDOT.

The center was very nice and clean. We popped into the rooms with the young babies and middle babies, and all the kids in those rooms (including a set of twins) seemed to be happy. The teachers are background checked to ensure safety, and they do not care for more than four kids at a time.

Based on the success of the tour, we went ahead and signed up to bring the babies there in February when we presume my maternity leave will be up. There is no waiting list that far out right now, so we're guaranteed two spots!

However, I've been told by many a mom that it's important to have a fall-back plan just in case something happens at the preferred center. We'll continue to tour other places as the weeks progress to make sure we've got multiple options for our multiple babies!