Challenges

I love my kids- they are amazing, beautiful, fantastic beings, and I miss them lots when I'm at work. However, I have no choice but to work full time so I (along with Hubby) can afford to provide my kids with food to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof over all of our heads.

The thing is, since Y was born almost three years ago, we've struggled with maintaining the same consistent childcare. We've always taken the kids out to babysitters, never having a nanny or anyone in the house with them, for a myriad of reasons. We started with a wonderful babysitter, who I trust totally and she was (is) amazing! We were also fortunate to only have to pay for part time child care as we had some family assistance a few days a week. However, about a year after we started using her, our family childcare had to end and the babysitter didn't have space for Y on the other days.

So we added a second babysitter- sitter #1 was three days a week and sitter #2 was the other two mornings only and was kind enough to transport Y to the family childcare for the other two afternoons (still with me here? it was exhausting!) Then sitter #1 had a baby and so she took a maternity leave, so we were back to sitter #2 full time. The regular family childcare ended totally, and once sitter #1 returned from her leave, she shortened her hours and it no longer worked with my schedule.

**Keep in mind that this doesn't take into account at all the vacations, days off and babysitter's kids illness that left us scrambling multiple times for coverage!

Fast forward a couple of years, and now I'm facing some more childcare challenges, with changes in our schedules for the coming school year, and increasing costs of childcare for two kids over one (side note: why didn't anyone ever tell me that having two kids is EXPONENTIALLY more expensive than one, not just doubling the expenses??!!!) I am just so frustrated right now by all of the roadblocks I keep encountering and this is just one of those times that I wish I could be a SAHM, or that Mary Poppins was real...

I want to close by saying that I am not at all trying to complain about babysitters needing time for themselves, kids getting sick, or having to find childcare for my kids- I work really hard to make sure that my kids are well taken care of and if I could be the one to meet their needs full time, I would.