Just had an interesting thing come up in a discussion with one of my daycare parents. Special note to parents looking for care: Do not be afraid to ask questions about what you see in the daycare. There may be a very good reason for things that you have not thought about. Do give your prospective daycare provider the benefit of the doubt and ask for clarification if you are unsure. Send an email, call, don`t be afraid to ask.

Here is what happened to me: I have interviewed a family this past week and I thought it went pretty well. They called one of my daycare familes for a reference and asked lots of questions but did have two concerns about my home - the fact I kept old milk cartons under the coffee table and that I stored my cereal on the bookshelf.

Well my daycare mom and I had a good laugh over it as she said I just gotta ask about the cereal on the bookshelf. She knew about the milk cartons because she provided many of them while her son was still on homogenized milk. I wash out the cartons with bleach, trim them and put two together to make blocks. And yes we store them under our large square coffee table. We build walls, forts, roads, child high towers, etc with them and I recycle as they get scrunched and add more as parents provide cartons. The cereal boxes are the large family size and are larger than 8 1/2 x 11 so I use them for filing. Yes I could cut the sides down like other magazine type holders but this way everything stays clean and needs no dusting.

As I said, don't be afraid to ask. We won't treat it like a dumb question. These things are normal to us and we do things differently when we are dealing with a whole group of people - my large exerecise ball sits in the exersaucer - why? so the 2 year old I have won't try to climb in. His arms are too small to get the ball out. Works and is for a reason so please ask.