Update: the daycare situation

I feel like I'm doing more of these retro-active posts than writing about what's currently going on, but I'm not going to be able to move forward without covering all that's already happened... or something like that.

So, back in February we were furloughed a day at work, dropping my 4-day schedule down to 3 days. Because of this, we had to remove Sam from the HugsPlus daycare center because there was no way we were going to be able to afford the $1500 tuition it required monthly... that and, with me being home 2 days a week now, it wasn't as necessary as it was before. At the time, we lucked out, as we already had my mom watching her on Tuesdays, and our friends were already going to be home with their newborn son, so they would be able to take on watching Sam for the addition two days we needed, so we had everything covered for a while there.

Sometime in May we were given the heads-up at work that we would be able to come back to full-time as our business was picking up. Great for everyone else, but because we had to adjust our schedule so much, there was no way I was going to be able to pick up the extra days so quickly. Around this same time, my friends were looking to get themselves back into the workforce, so the last thing I wanted was the burden of keeping an eye on Sami to hold them back from working themselves. So from the outside looking it, it would start to seem like our daycare situation was about to implode on itself... but alas, not all hope is lost.

Around this same time, I was talking Loki down the street, and across the way there was this sign on the front lawn of a house that had just been recently purchased, advertising an in-home daycare. Thinking this was too good to be true, I went home and started searching for the listing on Craigslist, just to see if there was any more details, and sure enough there she was, right down the street, with everything we were looking for: state-licensed, CPR certified, 15+ years of in-home daycare experience... Chris immediately called, and the price was right, so we scheduled an appointment to go down and meet her.

Charlaine was everything I could ask for. A mother of 4 herself, she and her husband were originally from Braintree, moved to Plymouth for a couple of years, and had just recently purchased the house a few doors down because they were moving back. The house was clean, we were able to see the areas she set up for the kids, and because she is state-licensed, she needs to be inspected, so I knew safety wasn't an issue. Being alone in her endeavors, she is only allowed to have up to 6 children, but no more than 3 infants, so she was being very selective as to how many kids she was taking on because obviously it's about her limits and not about the paycheck. But we immediately fell in love with her, and she must have liked us enough, and the next think we knew, we were slated to begin the week of June 20th.

Because of her previously scheduled kids and Samma's age, she told us she was only going to be able to take her on for Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Although a little bit of a schedule change, it wasn't going to be a problem. My mother is still able to watch her on Tuesdays, and with my job as awesome and flexible as it is, I was able to move my day off per week to Mondays.

Also, with this schedule, I was able to go back to my 4-day work week, which is always a good thing.... work was getting difficult with the day on, day off schedule, and an extra day's worth of pay a week is ever a bad thing either.

And because it's an inhome daycare as opposed to an organized center, there's a lot more schedule flexibility, and Charlaine already told us that once Sam is older and in the toddler stage, because she won't need as much supervision as she does now, she may be able to take her on Mondays as well, which means that I will finally be able to go back to work 5 days a week full-time. But we will cross that bridge once we come to it.

Now that we're at the end of our 3rd week with her, I can honestly say I am very pleased with our decision. It's in-town, its convenient enough, there's flexibility, and she's amazing to deal with.

In hindsight, despite all of our stressing in regards to daycare before Sami was even born, I am very pleased with how things have turned out in the end, and I hope that we're able to maintain this relationship with our new daycare provider for a long while to come.