Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Daycare revisited

Finding the time to blog with two young children is near impossible. But here I am, thanks to us keeping D. Jr. in daycare a couple of days a week, with some time to write (although, truth be told, I am foregoing a shower to do so!). Three cheers for daycare days!

Daycare has been on my mind a lot lately, mostly because I feel like it is preserving my sanity right now and I do feel some guilt around that. Because we do not have much family help with the kids, especially on weekdays, we decided to keep D. Jr. in daycare a few days each week. The benefits are multiple! It gives me some one-on-one time with Lydia and ensures that things like bathing myself and household chores actually happen on a semi-regular basis. It also allows me to schedule appts. etc. without having to bring along two kids. We also think daycare keeps some consistency in D. Jr.’s life and allows him to have an opportunity to do crafts, play with other kids, play in the great outdoors, and so on, because let’s face it, Momily often cannot manage those activities AND a little, fussy baby. I know that I shouldn’t feel guilt about sending him off a few times each week, but I still do – like somehow I’m not up to snuff in the parenting department. I also feel bad that I’m actually happy to be down to 1 kid once in awhile so that I can do selfish things (like blog!)!

Another supposed benefit of keeping D. Jr. in daycare during this time was that we felt we were “keeping our place” at the daycare, hence making the transition to my return to work easier. We figured D. Jr. would still have his spot and it was almost a certainty that the daycare would take Lydia . . . . until we found at last week that our daycare has shut down the baby room completely and is now only taking children 19 months of age and older. Eek!

So now I found myself worrying once again about what to do for childcare when I return to work . . . The waiting lists for daycares in our area are very long. It seems unlikely that we could have both our children at the same daycare. Hiring a nanny might be a possibility, but I’m not sure how that would work with me working part-time and different days of the week each week. I don’t think that we want a live-in nanny and a live-out nanny will eat up almost all of my part-time salary. Nanny-sharing might be a possibility, for the babies at least (mine and the new nephew), but then we are still shelling out a lot of dollars for childcare (nanny AND daycare because is it really reasonable to expect a nanny to look after 4 kids under the age of 4?!). At this point, I feel like I really want to return to work, but now who knows?! I’ve got a good 9 months to solve this, yet I’m still panicky!

Unbelievably, it will soon be almost 2 years that D. Jr. has been going to daycare. Remember all my anxiety about starting daycare way back when?! Now, it’s almost like daycare is my savior! It is funny how life goes, no? This is not to say that I don’t still have some reservations and concerns about what exactly goes on at our daycare (I can feel my sister-in-law nodding in agreement right now!), but for the most part I think they do a good job and my little devil is usually happy to be there. I really don’t want to find myself back at square one where child care is concerned, but I do find some consolation in the fact that all the emotional stuff should be easier this time . . . right?! Although so far nothing has been easier the second time around . . . I started this post 7 days ago and it sure ain’t my best work!

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