After we found our house in Magnolia we knew the next step would be to find a preschool for Ryan and hopefully get Lillian enrolled as well. We signed the contract on Tuesday and were flying out of Bellingham Thursday morning. Since Bellingham is a few hours away we decided that we would stay the night in Bellingham Wednesday night. So pretty much our only free day of our trip was Wednesday and it wasn’t even a full day. We talked about doing some touristy stuff that day, but we both decided that we wanted to check out some preschools in Magnolia first, which ended up taking up the rest of our day.
Our land lords have a daughter that is in between Ryan and Lillian’s age and they told us to call her preschool because there would be an opening with her leaving. That preschool was a day care/preschool and since I am a stay at home mom, we didn’t need the day care portion. We wanted to look into just a preschool. We did some research online and I was starting to get stressed again. Most of the preschools cost more than my 2 year college did. I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around that, trying to decide if we could afford that, and if we even wanted to pay it. (I also started looking into homeschooling Ryan for preschool…)
When we were looking at houses in Magnolia several people mentioned the Co-op there. We looked online and it seemed like it could fit in our budget. We decided to drive by and see where it was. We also wanted to see if we could talk to someone that works there about it. Lucky for us we got there just as a lady was giving someone else a tour so she showed us around as well. The preschool is in the basement of a church, it has several classrooms, a nice play ground outside and a play room for recess when the weather is bad, and several class pets. It looked like both my kids would love it there.
Chris and I really did like it. It still cost more than what we were used to and I would have to go help in each of their classes once a week. While I help in the classroom the other kid would go to their day care that they have which also costs, and neither of their classes would over lap. With all those costs it still would be cheaper for BOTH of them to go than it would be for just ONE of them to go to a different preschool.
Before we committed I wanted to talk to some of the moms in our soon to be ward about what they did for preschool and see if the moms did more of a play group preschool. Luckily I was able to get in contact with some of them and it sounds like most of the kids go to a preschool in the area. Several going to the Co-op. We decided that the Co-op would be our best fit.
I had planned on taking this coming semester off of preschool for Ryan (Lillian isn’t in preschool here yet.) but we called and we were told if they were enrolled this semester that we would have a better shot of getting a space next year. We called the school and were told some classes were full this semester and they had to check to see if the classes we needed had any openings. Ryan’s class had openings and he was my main concern so we knew we’d get him in for sure. The class Lillian would be in was full, but luckily a kid was moving out of it and they hand’t done the exit paper work yet. We were able to enroll Lillian before that other spot was filled so BOTH my kids will start preschool the same day Chris starts work.
This was a stressful situation for me. We have been lucky here with our preschool. A friend of mine had one in her home and it was perfect for what we needed. Ryan thrived there and I was hoping we could find something as special in Seattle. I spent a lot of time looking online and calling around and the Co-op looked perfect. Getting them in this semester was so much easier than I thought it would be. I can’t wait to be involved in their classrooms and to be busy right away. I think it will be a good way for us to get to meet new people as well.
Fingers crossed that they can get in for the upcoming school year though!
