O and I went to visit a Parents' Day Out program on Tuesday. I had an immediate "Whoa, I don't think I am ready for this" as soon as we walked in the door. I don't think I am ready to worry about my kid catching your kid's cold, or your kid hitting my kid, or the teacher neglecting my kid when she needs attention. I'm not ready to worry about whether someone could just walk in off the street and pick my daughter up and go. I'm not ready to relinquish her to a school or a daycare or the cold, cruel world.

OK, enough of that. The program was fine, I suppose. I asked all my questions and received satisfactory answers. The staff seemed nice; the facility looked clean. But I just keep feeling like more needs to be done before I just up and leave her there. Do I just have to trust that everything is going to be fine, like they said? Should I have asked to speak to some of the other parents? Yeah, I totally should have done that. Am I worrying this to death?

The upshot is that I need to work for at least a few hours a week and I need for someone to take care of Olivia while I am working. This place is convenient and has an opening and I didn't see anything that looked like egregious neglect or filth or abuse. But I also didn't see anything that made me declare that I felt like this was the best place for her to be. Oh, are we back here again?

Today was to have been her first day. I had her bag packed and her clothes laid out. But last night she started sneezing and coughing and her nose was running like a faucet. Looks like she caught your kid's* cold already.

(*A rhetorical "your kid." I'm not talking about your kid - your kid is fabulous!)