One of the toughest things about having a child (I think)...is dealing with the daycare "thing" if both mom and dad go to work. Before I had Mia, I thought I could EASILY do the 6-8 weeks with her and then find a loving and safe place for her to play during the day while I was off being a career woman. Boy, was I wrong. So very, very wrong. Stuff happens when you have a child, stuff you never ever thought would ever happen. Things like...always being a "career" minded woman but then changing your mind and being A-OK with throwing that all away to stay home and take care of my child and family. I'm a feminist...period. But that doesn't mean there is shame is staying home and taking care of your family. To me (and this is purely my opinion), I think life is much, much easier when one grown-up in the family can make money (doesn't matter who) and the other grown-up stays home and takes care of everything there...cooking, cleaning, watching kid(s), paying bills, etc. But, life isn't always that easy...
About 8 weeks after Mia was born, I had made a decision...I couldn't go back to work full time and leave my baby to her own devices (or anyone else's devices for that matter), but I wasn't ready to give up a job that I liked and frankly, we needed the income too. So, since then, I've been coming in to work three days a week (unless I've got something big going on) and work at home the rest of the time. I am so very fortunate and I know that. Up until a few months ago, JC took care of Mia the three days while I was at work while he worked at home. So, you can imagine what life has been like. We both work AND take care of Mia without much help. It's like we couldn't decide which to do so we just said, "Heck! Let's do it all."
Yes, a nanny that could come into our home three days a week would be great, but that's not exactly in the budget either at this moment. So, the days I work from home mostly mean I work at night after Mia has went to bed. We have very little room for anything else, but it works for us. We feel very, very lucky to be able to spend all of this time with her. It's worth it!
Well, babies do a funny thing. They grow up and as they do that...they become more active and want to play more and want to crawl around much more. So, we made a decision...we needed help. Just a little. So, in October 0f 2010, we found a "Mother's Day Out" Program at our church that could keep Mia 2 days a week from 9am-2pm and that fit our budget and situation perfectly. She could play with other kids and get some interaction while JC had some time to work during his days with her. It was great...until our previously "stay home baby" starting catching every little bug and virus around. 2 bouts of croup, 2 stomach viruses,1 bout of RSV, 2 ER visits, multiple chest colds and many sleepless nights over the next 4 months made us quit that business. We were paying for a daycare service that she could never go to. And the HUGE doctor bills from all of this sickness just made it impossible to continue. So we went back to our routine...work and watch the baby simultaneously.
Well, we knew we needed to find a different remedy. Mia needed interaction with kids...at least a little bit. Now, we have a great situation, a wonderful family friend (who is a stay at home mom and has a little boy a few months older than Mia) has offered to watch her 2 days a week from 9am-2pm. And it's working out fabulously! She gets all of that playtime and none of the rabid sickness that abounds in daycares. Yesterday...they went to story time at the local library. She loved it!
This is something all parents go through. Do I keep working? Do I stay home and take care of my family? Can we afford to live on one income? And that's not even dealing with the physical emotions a mom goes through in handing her small child over to someone else's care. There is guilt involved in that, and anger in "having" to give that time up for work and fear that something will happen and just all kinds of crazy hormone-induced emotions.
Like I said, we are very fortunate with our situation...and it works for us. And now that she's 15 months old, I LOVE that I get to have the best of both worlds. I get to wake up, get ready and go to my office three days a week. And then the other 2, put on my yoga pants and hoodie and play at the park and then pull my laptop back out at night. Yes we're tired all the time but that's parenthood. And having this little girl in our lives far more than makes up for losing a few hours of sleep.
Her newest favorite word (other than "no") is shampoo. Here is the face she makes when she says it:
I mean...how does it get any better than that?
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