End of the Broke-Ass Mom Preschool Saga
The Preschool Hunt of 2012 has come to an end, finally. Now all that’s left is to make a decision on which one. I consider ourselves pretty lucky that we have choices. When we decided so late in the game to put our son in preschool, I was expecting to find maybe one preschool with an opening. I certainly was not expecting to find six.
Last week I mentioned how the beginning of our search was going, and to be honest it was looking rather bleak. In the end, it all comes down to being a Broke-Ass Mom. The best preschool we found would either cost of $14k/year for five mornings, or $7k for three afternoons. We really just can’t do the afternoons because that would mean forcing my son to give up his naps before he’s ready. Sending him from 1pm-4pm three days a week would mean they would be seeing the worst of our son, and we would be wasting our money. We can’t afford $14k/year, and five mornings is a bit much for a kid who has never been to day care. Ergo, our top choice is out.
The runner-up is a preschool that we can afford but would take us at least an hour to get to, and the program starts at 8:30am. Well, our son typically wakes up between 7 and 7:30am. What am I going to do? Wake him up early for preschool? No thanks, we’ll have to deal with earlier mornings soon enough. I’m not ready to give up my morning cup of coffee for a preschool. Option two is out.
That leaves us with option three. It’s not perfect, but it’s mornings only three days a week, and it’s less than a mile from our house. We could walk if we were feeling adventurous, but we’ll probably opt for the ten-minute bus ride instead. The bus will be going against rush hour traffic too. That means my son won’t complain about a “crowded bus”. Option three also doesn’t have us paying someone else to let our child watch TV or play video games like one of the preschools we saw. Option three preschool takes them on nature walks once a week, has free play outside, and does art and cooking as well. In an ideal world, option three would read to them more regularly, end at 12pm rather than 1pm, and have maybe slightly less children (they have twenty-four). But hey, nothing is ever perfect in a Broke-Ass world. Option three is affordable, and won’t traumatize my son. For now, that will do.
