Zoned out

Harmon attends KidZone Child Care Center on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He’s been there for a year now (with his first day being Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006). We visited five places before choosing KidZone in what was not a very fun process. It’s no surprise that it was hard for us first-time parents to find a place to leave Harmon (at only three months old) AND feel good about it but we quickly found that in KidZone.

When we chose KidZone, however, we didn’t know they would have to move at the end of February 2007. Currently, it is housed in Zion Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor but the church is going through renovations and re-claiming the space KidZone currently holds. For some time, the KidZone director has been trying to find a new location and, last week, after several other deals fell through, we all thought KidZone finally had a new home. We even received a letter on Tuesday giving the new address and asking parents for help with the move! Although the new location isn’t as convenient for us, we decided to make it work because Harmon really likes his friends and teachers and has done really well there. On Friday, however, Kevin received word from a friend of ours (whose daughter also attends KidZone) that the deal, once again, fell through. Evidently, KidZone made an offer on a property and the LOCAL sellers’ office approved it but the NATIONAL sellers’ office said “not so fast, my friend!”

This news was very unexpected and everyone now is in panic mode. KidZone is working up another offer and has received a 10-day extension from the church but no one knows what will happen. Several parents already have moved their kids because of all the uncertainty but there also are other parents, like us, who keep hoping things will work out. Friday’s news, however, lit a fire under us and we finally had to act on some casual calls we had been making to other day care centers over the past couple of weeks. Late Friday, we visited Annie’s Children’s Center, which was the first place we visited back when we first started this whole crappy process. In 2006, Annie’s part-time program required a minimum of three days of care and Harmon only needed two so it never worked out. The location was great – almost exactly between my office and Kevin’s office – the “tuition” was reasonable and we liked it a lot but, as I said, it just didn’t work out. This time around, though, you CAN schedule two days a week and there IS room for Harmon. So, Kevin and I have a big decision to make.

We could wait it out and, worst-case scenario, have KidZone close AND lose our spot at Annie’s. Best-case scenario, we could wait it out, have it work out and let Harmon stay with those he knows and loves. The other scenario is to pull Harmon out of KidZone and enroll him in Annie’s and hope and pray he adjusts OK. As an aside, if he cries when I leave him with perfect strangers – he knows now, he had no clue when he was three months’ old – I don’t know what I’ll do. ANYWAY, another thing to think about is pulling Harmon out of KidZone and then having the whole thing work out. We’ll feel terrible.

Whatever happens, we need to do what's best for Harmon and make sure he has good people to care for him two days a week so we're going to Annie's today to finalize everything. It sucks to go through this all over again but it is what it is and no amount of whining about it (on my part) is going to change the situation. Hopefully, we'll all adjust just fine - AGAIN!