Last weekend we had a heatwave. This morning I woke up and saw
lots of snow outside of our window, which was no surprise. Last night snow blanketed Pittsburgh. It kept coming and coming and coming. I don’t often leave work early, but I left at
2:00 because I had late afternoon conference calls and didn’t want to get
stranded at work. Also, as a working mom I needed to get home in time to
relieve our nanny. The quickest way to get on her bad side is to get home late
on a Friday night!
I thought leaving early would be
a safer option. Although I was blessed to make it home safely it was a journey
full of slips and slides. In a word it was scary!
Photo from our window this AM (after they cleared our walkway).
Despite the Winter Storm Advisory
We Went Out
I would have loved to have stayed
in all day and remained warm and toasty. However, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for my daughter!
And today,
we had an appointment at a pre-school for a tour. Even though many things in
Pittsburgh were closed today, the preschool tour remained on. So, off we went, despite
the winter storm advisory we braved the elements.
Andre was not too thrilled about
making the trek. He’s a public school advocate and this pre-school was at a
private school. Private schools offend
his sense of fairness or something. In
general, he’s not a fan. I’m not necessarily a fan of private schools in
general. I am however, a HUGE fan of the
toddler and I am trying to find a pre-school where she’ll thrive. Pittsburgh Public Schools have some pre-school
programs with excellent reputations. However, you have to enter a lottery. I am planning to enter the lottery. However,
since there’s no guarantee about the result of that I think that we need to
keep our options open.
Fortunately, he was really
impressed by the school’s stories of success with its high school graduates. I
was impressed because they emphasized empowerment, advocacy and literacy. They also bragged a bit about their students
writing skills. They knew how to pull at
my heart strings!
This school had a better answer
about the discipline question too. They said that they help the students
negotiate conflicts with other students and occasionally they give the students
an opportunity to “spend time alone” to think about their actions. For some reason they were reluctant to call
it “time out”. TomAto, TomAHto. It really sounded like time out to me…
Tips For Finding the Right Pre-school
Stay tuned for more tales of our search for a pre-school and about the inauguration!
Photo from the last big snow storm in Pittsburgh. I love it. Thought I'd share!
The toddler visiting the pre-school.
Comments
Another option is putting you kiddo in a daycare that extends through preschool. Our kid goes to UPMC Mercy, which serves kids up to age 6, and it's an awesome daycare program. She absolutely loves it and learns so much. One of the things we like about it is that we don't have the separate hassle of figuring out preschool.
I very much agree with the last sentence written by Yummommy.(above)
Best of luck on the lottery thing or getting enrolled where you think is best.