EXCERPT FROM: Examiner
By Richard Webster
Your kids’ toddler days are magical times;  but finding day-care for children under a certain age is often next to impossible.

At a signing ceremony earlier this month, Gov. Martin O'Malley made official the first-ever contract between the state and family child care providers who participate in Maryland's child care subsidy program. I'm among the people who benefit from this agreement - so are the children in my care and their families.

A South Baltimore day care will close its doors Dec. 31 following a drop in enrollment and mounting financial losses.

CUMBERLAND — Both Allegany and Garrett County community agencies are struggling with maintaining child care programs, resulting in the loss of day care options for area families.

SALISBURY — The Wicomico County Council is expected to devote time in today’s meeting to discussing pre-kindergarten education, council meeting hours and issues with the local Housing Authority.

Montgomery County has found more financial irregularities at a publicly funded child care center in Wheaton that previously has been investigated for fraud, county records show.

Maryland parents will now be able to peruse inspection reports from child-care homes and centers across the state with a new online records system that advocates and officials say will bring another layer of accountability to day-care decision making.

The road to the future at the Families Foremost Center in Silver Spring is now paved with fluffy stuffed animals, state-of-the-art science equipment and lots of room to play.

A day-care center that has operated at the same Takoma Park address since 1979 is losing its home, in a holiday story with no real villain but plenty of victims.

In the Prince George's County community of Riverdale Park, town officials have noted a distressing sign of the national economic downturn: more children left home alone to fend for themselves by working parents too strapped to afford child care.