I contacted the pediatrician’s office with some forms that daycare requires the doctor to fill out. Of course, they replied and said that there is a $25 order form filling fee every time there is a new daycare/school form to complete. How lovely. The one note that they shared only after I called them, gave them my credit card number to process, and then I asked about future forms to have filled out: if I ever request that they fill out one of these forms in the future, and it’s within three days of one of Kaia’s doctor appointments, and I bring the form in for them to fill out and sign, then they can do it without charge. How… weird, yet annoying.

Of course, there are registration fees for daycare/school, as well as deposits. And then on top of that, I need to get a partial refund on the spring session of the music class I purchased for Kaia. I wrote out all the classes she’d taken, plus the ones she can still take, and so in the end, she will have taken eight out of a total 13 classes in the spring session. The music company is willing to only refund 50% of the classes she FORFEITS. Ultimately, this means the cost per class she actually took is higher than I originally thought, but it’s still lower than it would be if we paid a la carte. It is what it is.

I also have had to look into daycare specific purposes, like small food storage containers (they won’t allow any glass containers, so my usual glass jars I use to store Kaia’s on-the-go snacks are out), a lunch box (I cannot believe how many iterations there are of these…), daycare labels (this was a total nightmare; I could NOT believe how many options there were online and all the different price points). I did two searches on Google and Amazon for labels, got annoyed, then texted my friend, who has put two of her own kids in daycare, and she simply sent me the one she used and told me to buy the same ones. I trust her judgment, so I just ordered them to simplify my life.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. I keep telling myself that this is all for the best and that all this effort and annoyance will be worth it in the end. Kaia was going to end up in daycare at some point, so pushing it up a few months would not only save us money, but it would also reduce my daily stress of dealing with her ex-nanny’s constant insolence.