I was fortunate enough to have my mom come and help caring for my newborn daughter until she turned 18 months old. We went through a long searching process and enrolled her in a child care center. Unfortunately we found out it wasn't a good fit, and that's when we switched her to Sparkles! at Fair Oaks. My daughter has been there for a year and half, and she actually looks forward to going to school.

There are many advantages at Sparkles! First of all, they have extremely convenient hours. They are open until 8:30 PM, which is the latest I have ever seen. The way it works is that you can keep your child at the center for up to 10.5 hours with no penalty. So one scenario would be if you are a single parent and work the late shift in retail, you can drop off the child at 10 AM and pick up at 8:30 PM. Another scenario would be if you want to have a dinner just with your spouse, then you can drop off the child late and use the day care center for babysitting.

The director, Nancy, was very nice and accommodating. She seems genuinely happy to see everyone and greets us every morning. The teachers are mostly very caring, and sometimes do extra stuff like washing my daughter's dirty clothes or giving her a cute hairdo. When I had concerns, the teacher would listen to me. I know it's still not the same as having a family member (my mom) caring for my daughter, but I feel that I can comfortably leave my daughter at their care. The classrooms have windows that you can look into any time without the child noticing. They have realistic curriculum and the activities are posted on the door weekly. They also issue the monthly lunch and snack menus so I can see what my daughter is eating. They have a pretty extensive menu, including vegetarian options. For special occasions like Halloween and Thanksgiving, they always have some kind of activities. They also offer additional extracurricular classes (but charged separately) such as computer class, dancing class, and sports class, etc. We enrolled my daughter into the dancing class and she loves it.

Technologically, they are very advanced. They have webcams in the classrooms and in the playground (but charged separately). They have security lock at the front door, and a computerized check-in/check-out system. They send email updates to parents, and they even have a Facebook account for you to follow.

Financially, they also have the best "deals". They give significant discounts and/or free registration fee if you get a referral (to both the referral and the referring families). They accept credit cards, including automatic recurring charges. I love it because I don't have to worry about missing a payment and I can earn reward points. No other day care center in this area offers that. The weekly tuition is at about 25 percentile out of all the places I shopped for. So they have very reasonable rates. They offer flexible plans, including full-time (5 full days) and part-time (3 full days, 2 full days, 5 half days, and many more combinations). They allow you to temporarily dis-enroll and then re-enroll, so you don't have to pay when you go on a family vacation for two weeks (for example), and still keep your child's spot in the class when you return. This has worked wonder for us.

Of course, there are still a few things I don't like. The biggest issue we have is the communication. Most of the teachers speak English pretty well, but there are a few that really don't understand or speak English. I feel frustrated when I ask a question and couldn't get the right answer. Secondly, the daily report is pretty much useless. It always says my child ate everything, even if she didn't lay a finger on her snack or lunch. (Hint: I can see it on the Webcam!) Or, it almost always says my daughter has a dirty diaper at 5 PM everyday, including the days when we picked her up BEFORE 5 PM!

Overall, I still highly recommend this place, especially after the horrible experience with another day care center. I think the best proof is the fact that my daughter looks forward to going to school, and tells me she likes her teachers.