Carter at Le Bois Jolie

Every Monday and Thursday from 1:30 - 5:00 Carter goes to day care, or what's called "Garderie" (meaning "to watch over"). Carter's Garderie is called Le Bois Jolie. It's about a five minute drive from the house and is set on a hill not too far from the old village. The ladies there are very nice and Carter - after several months of trepidation - is finally going there without too much complaint. He still starts to whimper when we pull up to the Garderie, but he no longer screams in terror anymore when Dave or I drop him off.

In France, all families in which the parents work (or the parent, if it's a single-parent family) are able to leave their children at a day care. The day cares are mostly funded by the state. There is a cost to the parent for leaving the child there but it's extremely cheap: two euros or less per hour, depending on your income. The care is excellent, the places are warm, clean, bright and happy, and the kids seem to really enjoy their time there. Carter doesn't like getting dropped off but he's never unhappy when we arrive to pick him up.

In our case, we received approval to take Carter there twice a week based on our request to expose him to as much French language as possible. And it's working: at two years old he probably says twenty words, and most of them are in French.