Daycare Sucks!

If you remember, back in June/July/August, I was racking my brain and resources to come up with daycare clients so that I could stay home with Josiah once he arrived. I already thought I had my clients set up before this point when I decided to do daycare back in the winter before for Claire (and her two kids). I was also going to watch Jolyn's (my best friend) daughter and Claire's kids along with Janeece, whose son was due at the same time as Josiah. At that time, though, Jolyn's daughter got really sick and was diagnosed with a disease, which could potentially be fatal. She seems to be doing great now, but Jolyn decided to quit her job to be home with her daughter, this meant that I was losing Jolyn as a client, but I knew it was best for their family. Meanwhile, Claire needed someone to start watching her kids at that same time and I wouldn't be ready until the end of the summer. So, with the understanding that I would still watch Claire's kids when I was ready, I arranged for Jolyn to begin doing daycare for Claire. Well, Claire fell in love with Jolyn, and without ever giving me a chance, decided to stay with Jolyn and not use me for childcare. I still had Janeece as a client, but it wouldn't be until September at the earliest, so I set out to find more clients. Everything started to fall into place when I became connected with Amy (and her son Carson) and Heather (and her baby). Things just seemed perfect. And, while it was still not secure, I was running out of time to decide whether I would quit my job or not. Stepping out in faith, I decided to put in my notice. I trained a girl to take my place and decided that being home with Josiah was the most important thing to me. Everything else would work out.

Well, the details with Heather started crumbling, and she quit responding to my emails. So, she was out, but things with Amy were looking more and more perfect, and Janeece was still a certain client. In August, just weeks before Josiah was due, Amy told me that she wasn't certain how to tell her current daycare provider that she was leaving. This was a shock to me since I thought everything was already arranged, and since she was leaving out of convenience and not because of a problem with the provider, I didn't see what the issue was. I tried to leave things on a positive note and offered to be there if Amy needed me, but she didn't talk to me again for 4 months.

After Josiah was born, Janeece had her baby too, but she wouldn't be ready to need daycare until September. But September turned into November, and then December, and, in the end, Janeece and her husband arranged their schedules so that one of them could always be home with their son. But, unexpectedly, my cousin Liz needed daycare for her kids (Jaydon and Zoe), so I began watching them in October. The time of day is not ideal as I pick the kids up from school around 3 pm and keep them until 8 pm. Having a newborn baby, I decided to not take on too much and only watch them 3 days a week. So other family members also watch them at the times that I don't. (I also still believed, at this time, that I'd eventually be watching Janeece's son.) And, Jolyn made plans to go back to school, so I was going to watch her daughter starting in January.

In December, I heard from Amy again, out of the blue. But shortly after first connecting with me, she asked me if I would be willing to do daycare for her. She was switching to night shift and would need a new person. Her sister, Kim, would also need daycare for her son while their daycare provider's (the same lady) grandbaby was being born. I watched Amy's son one day in January, while she was training for her new shift, and I was supposed to start watching him regularly a few weeks later. Meanwhile, I had begun watching Jolyn's daughter when she started school at the beginning of January, and I was supposed to watch her 3 days a week (just an hour a day, but still regularly). And then Kim needed daycare for a week and half in January as well. After having only Jaydon and Zoe for months, I now had 5 kids at once! I was working 12 hour days sometimes and juggling a crazy schedule, but was glad to have regular work.

It didn't last for long, though. As soon as I started watching Jolyn's daughter, her crazy mom decided she wanted to take Katelyn a few days a week. Being crazy, it's hard to argue with her. So, 3 days a week went down to 2. Also, because of varied events, there were some weeks where I only watched her one day or not at all. My time watching Kim's son came to an end, and although I really enjoyed watching him, they didn't need me anymore. There was a slight possibility that I might be able to watch him on a regular basis because of Kim's husband's changing schedule, but that would be determined later. And, when it came time to watch Amy's son full time, she flaked out on me a 2nd time and told me that someone else would be watching him instead. On top of that, Liz only works part time (due to a rough economy here in Oregon), and there are weeks that she doesn't get to come into work. Lately, I've been basically on-call with her, only finding out the day of if I will be watching Jaydon and Zoe. And, the income hasn't been adding up. After working for 3 months in 2009, I only made just over $500. That's less than I made in 2 weeks at the hospital. Furthermore, even after taking on a total of 5 clients and working 12 hour days in January, I only ended up with about $350-400 income for that month.

I won't go into details, but we are short on money every month, and are trying to pay our mortgage, but are getting more and more behind on everything.

Just yesterday, I heard from Kim that they would not be needing me full-time after all. We were both happy working together, but her current provider will be able to work with Kim's husband's change of schedule. So, it's not necessary for them to change providers. And, then, today, Jolyn called me and said that her husband's schedule is changing, so they would need daycare for their daughter more like 8 hours a day. They were kinda worried about how they could afford paying me that much, and how I'd be able to handle 12 hour days that start at 6 am, but before they even talked to me about it, Jolyn's mother-in-law offered to watch her daughter for free everyday. They can't really pass up that opportunity, so Friday will be my last day to watch their daughter. I'm now back to ONLY having Jaydon and Zoe 3 days a week.

There is a possibility that I could increase my time watching them to all 5 days a week, but my other issue has been that because they are school-aged kids, they bring in a lot of ailments and expose Josiah to it. It's not anyone's fault, and is VERY normal in daycare, but it causes a lot of problems for us. So far, we've been exposed to the swine flu, common colds, head lice, and scabies. In fact, I have to take Josiah to the Dr. in 30 minutes to see if he has scabies. Any time these things come up, I also have to scrub down my house and sanitize everything, vacuuming and washing every bit of laundry AND I have to tell everyone else who has been in my house, which sometimes causes me to lose my daycare clients for the day/week. Is it worth it?!

The problem is that going out and getting a full-time (or even part-time) job isn't so easy. Oregon has one of the worst economies in the United States. And my job at the hospital doesn't exist anymore; someone else has it now. And, if I DO get another job, then I have to worry about daycare for Josiah. He'll still be exposed to the same ailments, and I'd be giving part of the income I'd be now making to pay for his care (as well as extra gas and other amenities).

I just don't want to do it anymore, but I don't know what else to do. I feel like Josiah is learning something new everyday, and I don't want to miss out on a moment of it. But I can't justify staying home while our bills aren't getting paid. And, yet, getting a job not only isn't so easy to do, but may not even be worth it after paying for daycare ourselves. I know that God promises to meet all of our needs. Sometimes, I just wonder, "Then do we NEED this house? Do we NEED to be out of debt? What do we really need?" I don't know. I just know that daycare sucks!

Good Mommy!

A little bit ago, I wrote a post about "bad" mommies and all of the "questionable" things that we do to survive or simply because it works! Tonight, though, it's my turn to get up with Josiah (as always) after Jesse got up with him during the weekend. And, even though he slept 8-9 hours at a time for Jesse (as always), I am up after only an hour and half of sleep trying to get Josiah to go back to bed. Jesse works extremely hard for our family and is an awesome dad to Josiah. I am so thankful for everything that he does. But it's the moments right now when he is sleeping and I am trying to stay awake that I need to recognize all of the LITTLE things that we mommies do to take care of our families...those things that we don't always get credit for... things that I need to give myself a little credit for because I could use a pick-me-up right now...

• I'm the one who gets up with Josiah 5 out of 7 nights of the week.
• In addition to getting up with him each time he wakes during the night, I'm also the one who stays up with him until he's ready to go to bed (even if I just laid down to go to sleep and he suddenly is wide awake).
• Furthermore, I'm the one to get up with him in the morning whenever he decides it's time to rise, regardless of how much sleep I got the night before. (Can you tell I'm tired?!?!?)
• I'm the one who still spends almost all day Saturday and Sunday taking care of Josiah by myself too, now that Jesse is in school and needs the day to do homework. In fact, even though I have stuff I'm trying to get done as well, I take Josiah with me 99% of the time and make do just so Jesse can get his stuff done.
• I'm the one who gets up 2 1/2 hours before church, picks out Josiah's clothes, packs his entire diaper bag for the day (including all of his food, toys, and clothes) all while trying to shower and get dressed myself allowing Jesse to sleep until 30 minutes before we have to go. All he has to do is get himself dressed and dress Josiah in the clothes that I have already laid out.
• I'm the one that washed all of the dishes the other day, by hand (as I held my breath), after we ran out of dish-washing detergent and our sink started to reek of rancid food.
• I'm the one who handles the finances and pays the bills and tries to figure out how to manage things when the numbers don't add up.
• I'm the one who has to sometimes work 12 hour days or take on more daycare clients at a time in addition to caring for Josiah 24/7, working for only $3 an hour, because I'm trying to do the best I can to contribute to our family's finances.
• I'm the one that does all of the laundry and tries to keep the house fairly clean and organized while caring for kids all day too.
• I'm the one who knows how many diapers or cans of formula we have on hand, if we need trashbags or laundry detergent, when bills are due, how long Josiah has slept today, what time Jaydon and Zoe need to be picked up, and what gift we need to buy to be ready for that birthday party next weekend- multi-tasking through everything!
• I even take out the garbage when Jesse forgets to, even though that's always been his household chore.
• And I try to be sensitive to how Jesse is feeling in the midst of working full time and going to school full time, helping him with his math homework, allowing him to have time to himself with the guys or playing video games, and giving him massages if he's stressed, even taking Josiah back into my arms when he's not calming down as quickly for Jesse.
• I'm the one who drove all over town and made numerous phone calls to get "Josian's" name corrected on his birth certificate and SS card. And I still have to do it again tomorrow because it's not finished yet.
• And I did all of this because I'm the one who filed our taxes for us, collecting all of the paperwork and sitting down to answer all of the questions myself. Just as I've done for the past 3 years.
• I'm the one who loaded Josiah up, taking everything we needed to care for/entertain him so that Jesse could devote the entire day to homework. I drove to the grocery store in our car that's acting up, toted Josiah in his REALLY heavy carseat through the rainy parking lot, browsed the store for the needed ingredients, talked Jesse through his crisis moment when our internet got shut off because we couldn't afford the bill and he needed it for homework- all while standing in the baking aisle, drove to the gas station- not even sure if I had enough gas to make it- and had to unload Josiah and carry him in the store just to pay for the gas, then making it to my mom's house by 11am to spend the entire day balancing my time between caring for Josiah and baking the most fantastic cake for our women's group at church. 
• Everyone thought my cake was really great, and it was the first one I ever made.
• But even though I am exhausted, I do feel joy in knowing that I've worked hard for my family and am appreciated by my husband. I'm the one who gets a special hug and kiss when he walks in the door and says, "Wow! The house looks really great! Thank you for everything you did."
• And, even though it can be overwhelming to feel that the mass majority of child-rearing belongs to me, I'm also the one that Josiah smiles at more quickly and more often than anyone else. In fact, I'm the one who he's smiling at right now with eyes barely open. I'm the one that calms him down faster. I'm the one who gets to all of his milestone moments for the first time. And, now that Josiah is starting to prefer certain people or pick and choose who he wants to go to, I am the one he holds out his arms to. I believe that we'll always have a special connection because he's Mommy's Little Man.