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The childcare plan for the next couple weeks

May 25th, 2011 at 04:06 am

Bear with me; my blog is going to be all daycare, all the time until we sort this out. :/

We've got this week sorted out, a couple good options for next week and two promising leads on long-term solutions.

This week:

Tomorrow, AS will stay home with AA in the morning, and NT will take over at noon. (I'm off to the airport at 2pm so I'm not much help.)

Thursday, AS is working from home all day.

Friday, I'm either getting an extra holiday day or working from home. Well, I predict we'll get the day off as an office but that I'll have to work a couple hours from home to catch up.

Next week:

Monday is a holiday, so we all have the day off.

Tuesday through Thursday, if the daycare hasn't reopened, we're hoping to hire a relative of NT's co-worker or else the assistant from our daycare to come sit with AA here at home. I'm guessing it will be about $80 per day or $240 for three days, $90 more than we currently pay for a full week. (Gulp!) But we need to do something; it's just not fair to AA to work from home and only half pay attention to her while she plays by herself for another full week. We all have sick days available, but we're all much too busy to actually take any right now!

Thursday evening we leave for my college reunion, so Friday she'll stay with our friends. I was going to have them drop her off at daycare before this all hit, but thank goodness one of our friends is a freelancer and can take her for the full day.

Medium-term:

I can probably take a sick day or two the next week, which would make a total difference keeping AA home, because I could keep her company and take her out and stuff. If daycare reopens (which would mean the worst has happened, so I kind of don't want it to open for a while) we're fine using their unlicensed service for a bit; we'll easily be able to access the rest of our flex money as long as our long-term provider is licensed.

Long-term:

We found two places on Craigslist; we have a meeting with one for Tuesday evening, as I mentioned, and I'm in the process of setting up a meeting with the other one, hopefully for sometime this week. Locationwise they're good (10-25 min. by bus) and pricewise they're great (one is $150 per week, our current rate, and the other "starts at" closer to $130 per week). I didn't see either person on the state database of licensed providers, but I'm not sure that list is comprehensive. We'll have to check that out.

I'm going to stay glued to Craigslist to see if any other slots open up. I think you have to jump on these things when you see them; the one lady posted less than a week ago and is all booked with interviews from now till next Thursday. The other one JUST posted yesterday, so I'm hoping to get us in kind of early and maybe get a slot if they seem nice.

One bright spot about all of this is that it's kept me from worrying about this business trip. (Being a naturally introverted person, stuff like this usually makes me nervous.) Other than checking in and picking out some clothes to bring, I haven't even really thought about it. I figure I can pack tomorrow and go in a bit late if necessary; no one is expecting me anyway because of the daycare situation.

5 Responses to “The childcare plan for the next couple weeks”

  1. MonkeyMama Says:
    1306341874

    This is something I am glad I didn't have to deal with. We never really found anything for LM's last year before Kinder (Ms. Preschool moved). We found an okay substitue, but it was only 4 hours a week versus 16. At that time we looked at a lot of EMPTY daycares, which kind of defeated the purpose. We mostly signed up the kids to socialize. That said, we were on a waiting list for more hours for well over a year and never got them. The BEST providers were full, with endless waiting lists.

    At least it should be a little easier with 3 of you?

    I hope it all works out for you very soon!

  2. North Georgia Gal Says:
    1306345246

    Sounds like a nightmare! At least you are all able to juggle to get it covered until something else works out!

  3. ceejay74 Says:
    1306346030

    This is the one part of daycare I hate -- the uncertainty! It reminds me of renting apartments before we bought, and trying to time everything just right, feeling like you were auditioning for the privilege of giving someone tons of your money, etc. It doesn't help that we're going for dear old ladies who I guess are more likely to retire and/or have their health fail. One of our two options looks much younger (AS stalked her via Google) and I have to say it's appealing to me. Even though I love the decades of experience and grandmotherly vibe of an older daycare provider, it's left us twisting in the wind twice now, so it's starting to seem less appealing.

    A center would be much more reliable, but less homey, and 2X to 3X as expensive as at-home providers. And their waiting lists tend to be insane, so it's worked out better for us (so far) to just hunt down in-home people nearby. With a car we'd have myriad choices, but we've got to make do from what's convenient if we want to stay car-free.

  4. MonkeyMama Says:
    1306352100

    I haven't heard any good reports from ANY Centers. Never understood why most people saw them as favorable and worth paying several times more for.

    Consistency is worth something, I guess.

  5. My English Castle Says:
    1306370873

    I have to say we had a really good center at the University--but I think we were just lucky: all early childhood-ed majors, and wonderful folks. But until you find something, I think we all understand this will BE your life.

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