Letter No. 41 Daycare Hunt

Pine Tree Enduring Harsh Snowy Storm

Oh gosh we did't get into ANY of the daycares!

So shouted me on the morning of July 20th.

It was the day when the result of our applications for daycare facilities came out. 

I order to get into a daycare certified by the local ward-level government, you need to win a lottery.

So I was anxiously looking forward to receiving a call from any daycare which we applied for about a month ago. 

Around 1130am, my wife couldn't stand any more waiting and asked me to call the local government office to check the result. So I called. 

My guess was we could at least get into our 4th or 5th highest priority daycare, if not the 1st or 2nd. 

But the harsh reality crushed my optimistic projection.

We did not get into any of the 8 facilities we applied for, of which 4 clearly had available slots for 0 year old infant at the beginning of July. 

I was so shock and nervous that I could not eat much for the remainder of that day. 

On the following morning, I woke up at 430am without an alarm clock. This often happens when my brain feels stress or anxiety. 

After jumping out of bed and made my way though to a living room, I started searching other available daycares that are not government-certified, but still provide high quality service with an affordable price.

At around 9am when the daycares start to run their businesses, I called each one of them in a frenzy.

 Luckily, we found 2 slots in relatively nice private company-based daycares, which helped me release some stress. 

But I need to go visit them in person next week to thoroughly investigate if they do provide good childcare service. 

Are other parents also going through this? This is such a stressful process!

Fingers crossed…

To be continued…