Daycare dilemma

I am finally starting to look into daycares for my son. That is, I am starting to get serious about it. He is already on the waiting list for over 30 daycares, I have visited several and have fervently prayed for others. But these actions remained in the abstract until now.

Recently, I visited a daycare that a) has space, b) is available now, c) is around the corner, d) is subsidized and therefore quite affordable, and e) is ready to accept my son part-time. Then why am I frozen? Why am I not jumping at the chance to put my son in this daycare? Why did I not fall asleep until after midnight last night, tossing and turning in my ambivalence?

The daycare in question is a home daycare, run by a woman who seemed pleasant enough. None of the children were smiling though they were playing quietly by themselves. When my son went to carry a table across the room, the lady took it away from him. She was open to vegetarian options but in the same breath mentioned fish and rice krispie squares. She showed me the little blue mats that are used for nap time and I suddenly had a vision of my son being put to sleep on the mat on the floor, completely out of context to the world he knows. And I thought, well, he'll get used to it. But it suddenly seemed so scary and sad.

My son has been going to daycare two mornings a week and strangely, none of the fears that assailed me at the new daycare ever came up at the morning one. A day is much longer than a morning, a friend reminded me. It is, but why am I reacting so strongly? Is it the idea of naps in foreign, new places? Lunches prepared and served by someone else? Or was it the environment that I intuitively felt as unhappy, controlled and unloving?

I have been rationalizing the experience to myself. Maybe I am overprotective. Too controlling. Maybe I am not ready to let go of my son. But I don't think this is true. What I want for him is to be happy, to be valued and be cared for. I didn't feel it there.

I will give it a second chance. First impressions, especially mine, are usually wrong.

What a minefield.