"The One"

Sweet lord, I think we found "The One."

THE daycare provider, that is. THE perfect person for us and our baby.

She's everything we ever dreamed she would be.

From the beginning of our search, I had this ideal picture in my head of what we wanted in a daycare provider. We have family and friends who have had really good luck with in-home providers, and we liked the idea of one person getting to know our baby throughout his/her early childhood. We hoped we'd find someone who would not only care for our baby while we're at work, but someone who would LOVE our baby.

We had high hopes for the first in-home provider we met with, but that was a disaster. We were not comfortable with her or her house at all. So then we thought, maybe we don't want an in-home provider. Maybe a center would be a better fit for us. So we visited one of those, and actually did love it--but couldn't stomach the cost of it.

My coworker, with whom I share a cubicle wall, recommended that we look into the woman who watches her kids. Her daughters are 3 and 1, and her oldest has been with this woman since she was just a few months old. Because my coworker works part-time and has family that pitches in to care for her kids, she only uses this woman one day per week, and she mentioned how she was looking for some more permanent, full-time kids. I gave her a call, and we just now had the time to meet tonight.

And she. is. AWESOME.

She LOVES these kids. Like, truly loves them. She has relationships with the parents outside of her business, and she attends events in the children's lives. She has a couple of school-age children who come for a couple of hours after school, and they've been with her since they were infants. She has a background in child development, so she plans a mini curriculum with related activities and "lessons" for the kids. She bakes cakes and cookies with them; she does arts and crafts projects. She proudly showed us handfuls of photos she's taken of the kids she cares for. Her house was cluttered (lots and lots of toys!) but clean. She has a big, fenced-in backyard. She values nutrition and feeds the kids as healthy as they'll let her (some kids are really picky). She is a freelance children's book illustrator, and works at a children's museum on the weekends.

I mean, seriously now. LOVE her.

She is a talker, for sure. We sat with her for an hour and 15 minutes, just chatting and getting to know each other. We bonded over our dogs, and she told us all about her grown children.

She is PERFECT, people. Just perfect.

It's true what people say--you'll know when you know. It's right when it's right.

I am so excited I could scream. We plan to call her back tomorrow, fill out her paperwork, and put down a deposit. And I cannot even tell you how good it feels to know that this weight, this thing that has been causing a ball of stress in the pit of my stomach for the last few weeks? It will be gone.

Because we found her! We really found her!