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Day Care Daze

Posted on June 14th, 2008 in babysitters, sadness

I handed Boobaby over to strangers and they gave me this in return:

Boobaby claim check
The baby claim check. Either that, or I still have a suitcase in left luggage at LaGuardia.

Boobaby is rarely ever babysat, and even then pretty much only by family members — grandparents certainly do their bit on visits. There was one memorable adventure in babysitting last year, and I suppose you can count the times I’ve been mistaken for a manny, too, but apart from those few occasions, Boobaby has always been in the immediate care of her mom or dad.

Except last week, when we headed to a destination wedding where children were not welcome at the ceremony or reception. Childcare was provided, but anxiety medication for helicopter parents was sadly, not. As I wrote yesterday over on GNM:

You know that gut-wrenching yet relieving moment when you hand your child over to strangers?

Well, I don’t.

Along with the storied advantages to being a stay-at-home parent (read: “Let’s go to the beach on Wednesday!”) comes one great drawback: Boobaby, my brave little girl of nearly 30 months, has never learned to be babysat.

My wife and I went to a destination wedding last weekend. Since children were not welcome at the ceremony or reception, the couple had arranged for top-notch child care: far from the the “tween-from-my-church” variety, these were professional caregivers who signed us in, took my picture together with my daughter, and handed me a claim check as they chivvied me out the door.

The adventure continues: to read the whole article at GNM Parents, click here.

4 Responses to “Day Care Daze”

  1. A claim check? Seriously?

  2. I know, huh? The code matched Boo’s wristband…

  3. Oh, and yes, seriously.

  4. That makes me shudder. I know this is probably hard to believe coming from a working mother but I have severe anxiety about leaving my children. I am fine with their daycare but anyone else besides family totally freaks me out so it rarely happens.

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