Why Change Daycare??

So this morning as I sat in traffic a common dilemma in our household rekindled in my mind. My son currently goes to an in home daycare that he loves. He often cries when it's time to go home (at least more often than when I leave him there). He enjoys the other kids despite a few child tantrums, the lady (and her family) who does the daycare is really nice and she reminds me of someone that would fit right into our family. So...

Why change daycare??

My dilemma here is that I've switched jobs and now commute in the complete opposite direction of where his daycare is. My husband doesn't have a commute so the last few weeks we've been having him drop off and I pick up. This system has worked great for the last couple weeks, but the husband is doing a few jobs in which he must leave really early so I'm stuck with traffic two ways on both my morning and afternoon commute. Here's a list of the pros and cons.

PROS of leaving him where he is

• My son loves his daycare and it's obvious to me that he has a good time there.
• I trust my daycare provider, and she lets me know if there were any issues or problems with the kids that day.
• It's a small amount of kids so I know he gets the attention he needs.
• He interacts with older kids and he learns much more than if he were home with me!
• My daycare provider has been doing daycare for 13 years and never once had a complaint lodged with the state (I did my research). She also has a degree in child development and used to teach preschool and kindergarten.
• If we have another child I know what to expect and how much it will cost.
• I would truly miss my provider and our casual chit chat when I pick him up and/or drop him off. Like I said before, my provider would easily fit into my family so I feel at ease with leaving my son with her. Her family is great with him too!
• I wouldn't have to research another provider! The husband and I went on 6 interviews and I called at least 30 daycares to see if they were taking infants after my son was born. When I finally decided on the current daycare provider I called the state licensee board and talked to the state representative that does visits to said establishment to ask her about the one that we had liked, luckily it was a good review. Yikes...that was a lot of work.
• Putting our son in a daycare center is almost completely out of the question. First off, they are SUPER expensive! For a single year of daycare at a center (this includes a discount from my work) I would pay almost as much as my student loans from a four year degree!!!! I feel that is absolutely outrageous and I refuse to pay that much for my son to be ignored! Don't even mention if we had another kid, that would more than twice as expensive (infants are apparently more work although I beg to differ!) Some people will say that you can't put a price on the safety of your child...they are right. I would pay this if it was my only option. However, since it's not and my current provider is less than half that of a center I like the in homes better. They also get a little more attention if you pick the right one.

CONS of leaving him where he is

• It's no longer convenient at all for either my husband or I. I spend at least an hour in traffic in the morning and at night. Fortunately half of that is with my lovely little boy and we count and sing songs, that is when I'm not cursing under my breath at the guy who just cut me off.
• Gas prices are still high (although they are down to $3.33 even with a new 3 cent tax taking affect today!) and that means my tank is expensive to fill. When I was younger I would always get carsick from the smell of gasoline, now I get sick from the final total!!
• I have to go through the worst "intersection" in my opinion. Not only do you cross the worst rated bridge in the metro area at least 40 feet above the Ol' Mississip...they are doing "inspections" on it this week and I'm pretty sure they are just checking it to make sure the cracks are still in the same place. It's slated to be rebuilt in 2011...but about 200 feet after the bridge you enter the on-ramp for 2 major interstates. You pull a 270 degree (which means you can't match speeds of the regular traffic) turn onto I-94 and then stay in one lane that takes you to I-35E north. You can only imagine how backed up this gets on a normal day...don't even ask what its like if some yahoo wrecks their car anywhere near it, but I digress.
• People do NOT know how to drive. I either get stuck behind the foreign immagrant that has never bothered to actually get a driver's license or behind the Grandma who's so self consious about driving in the big city that she becomes a hazard herself!

Well, as you can see I guess my PROs list is much longer. I'm also recounting my CONs list and most of it is about traffic anyway. I guess we're sacrificing for the sake of our prince. I hope he appreciates everyone of my grey hairs when he gets older!!