Operation Childcare: Solved! Hopefully.

I want to thank you all for your kind words, texts, calls, e-mails, comments, etc. of encouragement after my first day back yesterday.  It meant more than you know and truly made today that much easier!  Today was slightly better than yesterday, at least in terms of tears - there were less today.  I honestly think having Dan stay with Lilly yesterday and Mom with her today and most of tomorrow made the transition so much easier.  While this week is kind of crazy in terms of childcare, knowing she's with someone familiar probably lessened my anxiety a little.  Now if I could just figure out some sort of groove for the mornings, we'd be set!  More on that later.


Quite a few of you have been asking me what we decided to do about childcare, so I thought I'd use this post to update you.  I have blogged on this topic a few times before (here and here in my typical long-winded great detail), and the last time I blogged we had researched daycares, gone for visits and been put on several waiting lists.  While we liked the idea of a nanny, we didn't feel like we could justify the cost, as it looked like it was going to be quite a bit more expensive.  We did not originally anticipate needing childcare until the beginning of July.  If Lilly had been born on or around her due date, my 16 weeks of leave would have gotten me into mid June, and then our Moms were going to help out for two more weeks.  All of the daycares told us that this greatly increased our chances of getting in, as that is apparently the time of year when kids move up classes and things get rearranged.  Because she wanted to make her grand entrance earlier than anticipated, in true Diva fashion, it's put us in a little bit of a childcare bind.  Dan has been calling each of the daycares where we are on waiting lists every day for the past few weeks to see where we stand.  What you have to understand is that we tried to be VERY prepared about this - we knew the best daycares were extremely hard to get into - and we have been on some of the lists for almost a year.  As of last week, we had moved up to third on the list at our top choice.  They told us this could mean two weeks or two months, there was no way to tell and we'd have to just wait it out. Great.  


Luckily for us, my Mom said she would be able to help us until we worked something out.  However, she thought my return to work was next week, and unfortunately this week she couldn't help us out the whole week.  What that meant for us this week is: Dan took vacation on Monday and took care of L, Mom came this morning and kept her today and is keeping her part of the day tomorrow.  I'm working from home after lunch tomorrow afternoon and Thursday to take care of her, and I have PTO on Friday for my cousin's wedding.  


Sometime last week, a friend of ours got in touch with us and told us that someone he worked with who happened to live in our neighborhood currently has a nanny and was looking for a way to defer the cost/a possible nanny share.  This news came at an excellent time, because we still hadn't figured out what we were going to do.  In the interest of time/lengthiness, the short of it is this: this couple just so happens to live directly behind us.  They have an 18-month old, Callie, whom this nanny has cared for since her mother had to go back to work 8 weeks postpartum.  The nanny was hoping for a few more hours, and the couple was hoping for less of a financial burden.  Callie is in a preschool (actually it's more of a mothers morning out program) at a local church three days per week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:30a - 1:00p).  The nanny keeps her the rest of the time.


We went to meet this couple last week and really hit it off, and we are really excited about this opportunity.  The Lord truly does answer prayers, because the situation we've come up with is the best of both worlds for Dan and I (he wanted daycare, I wanted a nanny), and it literally fell into our laps at the perfect time since we were in a bit of a childcare bind.  We've called and Lilly is first on the waiting list for the preschool, which runs the same as the school year: September - May.  I have the best boss in the world, who generously agreed to let me work from home two days per week, on Mondays and Fridays (honestly, best boss I've ever had or will ever have, hands down).  So, if this works out, for there rest of the summer, L will stay with Callie and the nanny Tuesday - Thursday, and I'll get to be at home with her on Monday and Friday.  In September, she'll go to preschool for half a day M, W and F, so the nanny will have her for 2.5 days/week - all day Tuesday and Thursday, and Wednesday afternoon.  This will also give me a little bit of a break if there's anything pressing that I need to do for work on Monday and Friday mornings while she's at school.  She will have plenty of one-on-one attention from both the nanny and I, and will also be socialized with other children at daycare.  It also doesn't hurt that this is going to save us a TON of money - as in at least a car payment - per month.  Thank you, Jesus.  We are going to meet with the nanny tomorrow afternoon, and pending anything crazy happening, we're doing a trial run on Thursday morning.  I have to be in the office for a meeting, anyway, so we'll leave Lilly with the  nanny (and Callie) until around lunch time on Thursday.  If all goes well, we'll start her with the nanny next week.


I must mention here that Mom spoiled me today with REALLY cute picture text updates.  I may have to ask the nanny to do the same.  :-)  Here are the photo updates I got, along with the messages my Mom sent with them:

Making a present for Grandmommy (her words not mine)

Nap time Mommy

Baby no. 1

Talking to Grandmommy after my 2.5 hour nap!

While the following pictures are unrelated, I thought they were too funny not to share:

After work walk with Mommy, Daddy and big sis Layla

Dan "teaching Lilly how to crawl."  Fool.

Leaving Lilly has been one of the hardest things I've had to do so far, but I can't tell you how wonderful it is to know that she is in excellent hands and to come home to her sweet smiling face.  It gives me something to look forward to, and I think it even maybe makes my days pass a little more quickly because I count down the  minutes until I get to see her again.


Hope your Tuesday was fantastic!  Have you voted today (both in the primaries here in NC and for our blog?!)?  ;-)


Sarah

Childcare 101

One pretty big item on my list of “this is seriously giving me hives, we need to make a decision and act on it pronto” is childcare for Baby Geronimo.  We have decided that, at least for the time being, I am not going to stay home.  At first, I was pretty resistant to this idea – I’ve always thought I’d like to stay home with my children until they went to kindergarten.  However, I’m in the process of switching roles at work that will be substantially less hours and travel, and we decided together that long-term, this is a better decision for us right now (I know, you’re all shocked that we agreed on something baby-related…we are, too!).  If I am being honest, I also secretly wonder if I am cut out for staying home full-time.  I have plenty of girlfriends who do this and are planning to do it, (and please let me preface these next statements by saying they are non-judgmental to the max), but I’m just not 100% sure staying home would be for me.  I went to stay with my sister-in-law to help with my nephews and niece a few months ago, and I swear I have never respected anyone more.  Andrea has a full-time, 24-hour/day job that I think is harder than mine most days!  As I said before, it is very possible that I’ll change my mind once Baby B makes his/her arrival, and I think my 4-month maternity leave will be a good trial run for me to see how it would be, but for now, the plan is for me to come back to work.

With that said, Dan and I have GOT to get busy on discussing childcare.  I have a girlfriend at work, Carrie, who is expecting in October.  Carrie told me that she thought that most daycares had a 6-month waiting period, but boy was she wrong.  She started calling a lot of places just last month and most of them won’t have space for her Samuel until May 2012 (she's due in October and will be back to work in January)!  Quite a few other people have told us that if we are even considering daycare in the least, we need to go ahead and choose some that we like and get on their waiting lists NOW.  We can always defer when the time comes or just tell them we’ll no longer need a space, no harm done.  With that said, how does one go about choosing a preschool?  Through the little bit of research I have conducted on this subject, I already to know that it is going to be a LOT of work.

The first thing we need to do is identify the things in a preschool that are important to us.  Mind you, Dan and I have not yet discussed any of this – once we do, I will report back on whether we were even on the same page!  My "wish list" is made up the following (in no particular order!):

• I want a clean, safe environment for Baby Geronimo to spend his/her days. 
• I would like something that is fairly close to where we live – preferably close to downtown Raleigh, if possible.  We live less than 5 minutes from downtown, and Dan works downtown.  While my office is not downtown, I’m only about 15 minutes away, so I just want it to be accessible so that in case of an emergency one of us can get there quickly. 
• I want the school to be accredited, and I want a good teacher-to-student ratio – the fewer children a teacher is responsible for the better, so that every child receives the attention he/she needs and deserves. 
• It goes without saying that I’d like for it to be learning-oriented and with excellent teachers, so that Baby B will be nourished and challenged! 

I know, I haven’t mentioned anything about cost yet – but it’s because I really don’t have any idea what childcare costs these days!  Dan and I are very fortunate to have good, steady jobs, and I am by no means saying that cost is not an issue, but I am willing to pay more for a good school.

So how does one go about choosing?!  The general consensus from the research I’ve done and people I’ve spoken to is that we should do our research, develop a short list, and then schedule visits to the schools that made the cut.  We should be sure to meet with the preschool directors in person and observe the teachers with the children – and possibly even ask for references from other parents that we could speak to for recommendations.  The problem for us is going to be even finding any time to sit down and develop a short list.  Several girlfriends have recommended the NC Division of Child Development to use as a reference.  I think I will start by searching that site for 5-star preschools, and then go from there.  I’m sure there will be many follow-up posts on daycare visits and this whole process, so stay tuned for those.

The other option that we have discussed but not in great detail is a nanny.  This is a whole new beast to deal with!  Ideally, we’d want someone with a background in nannying and preferably a degree relating to child development.  We would want this person to come to our home Monday – Friday.  I would not expect them to do any kind of cooking or cleaning or anything like that for us – our main focus would be childcare.  I have several girlfriends who have chosen this option and love it as well.  They have given me several websites to look into such as Sitter City and Care, but I’ve not gotten around to doing a thorough search yet.  The good thing about these websites is that they provide background checks, which we would definitely be interested in before even interviewing nannies.  I would ideally love for someone to stay at home with my child until he/she is around the age of 2, at which point I think I would feel better about sending them to daycare (I know, 2 is a random age, and I’m not sure why I picked it other than it sounds good.  I just like the idea of my child getting one-on-one attention, nurturing, loving and learning from a nanny before going to preschool to continue learning and developing their social skills.).  Again, I have no idea how much this would cost.  We cannot afford to pay someone a $55,000/year salary to stay at home with our child.  The limited research I have done says that the typical cost ranges form $10-$14/hour for one child, which seems reasonable but would still I think cost us more than if we put our child in even the best daycare.  The only thing working to our advantage from this standpoint, while horrible in itself, is that with the economy being so bad and teacher jobs being cut everywhere, my girlfriends have told me that there are a lot out there to choose from.  While it is unfortunate that our economy is in this state and that qualified teachers can’t find jobs educating our future, I am hopeful that this option will work out for us.  We’ll just have to crunch some numbers depending on what we decide to do to help determine which option will be best for us. 

Whew, that was a long one, but these are important issues!  Do any of you have any suggestions or opinions either way on this topic?  We’d love to hear from you, and could use all the advice we can get!

Until next time…

Sarah