Now that Mardi Gras is behind us, the city of New Orleans is in Lent and all us sinners are back to the grindstone.
In our household, childcare searching went up a notch. I found several local students interested in sitting (unfortunately, none are available all mornings and several who have worked as full-time nannies are asking $12/hour pay). One student (who gets extra points as a native spanish speaker and seems very sweet) is coming tomorrow morning to babysit for a few hours. Thursday is her only available morning during the week but we want to get to know her so that we may have the possibility of calling on her in the future. I think the last time went out leaving Will with a babysitter was last Mardi Gras when we hit the Quarter with Eli and Wyatt… just to give a sense of what a rare event it is.
But there are other exciting babysitting fronts coming available. One is that University Montessori, where Will was before the storm, is going to have an opening and we are welcome to go back there starting in a few weeks. Will actually has seen several of the kids from this program out at the park and clearly remembers and gets along with them. We love the staff and Will gets along well with everyone, so this is a good option. Another option (and more affordable) is that the Abeona House, a center using Reggio-Emilia teaching (of which I am a fan), is opening April 1st. Some additional benefits of Abeona House: awesome, like-minded parents with cool kids and the fact that children as young as 6 weeks are accepted — so, in the fall, I could bring the baby there for a few hours a day/week as well. And finally, yet another option is an in-home based provider. I found a woman over Craig’s List, a K-8 teacher, who lost her job post-Katrina and is starting an in-home program to help her stay at home with her kids (ages 2 and 7 months). She is bi-lingual (spanish-english), seems very well-spoken and friendly, and would take Will from 8-12 M-F for a mere $100/week. (This is literally hundreds less than any other option.) We’re going to meet with her on Friday and check everything out. In the event that we like what we see, Will could start there on Monday. My gut instinct on her is very positive (I’ve loved our emails) and we’re excited about the idea of Will being in a bi-lingual household for a few hours a day.
Mostly, it is very exciting to have choices!!! The bummer is that we are going to be in Mobile for about a month or so around Baby Number Two’s birth, so any childcare we start will be interrupted. We could either re-start the same program when we return or start a different one. But at least we have some options.
Which leads us to the next point: where we are living for the next few months. We decided to hold off on selling for a few months. With all the work I have to do, the cost of moving, and the time of re-finding everything from housing to daycare, it makes sense to stick around until after I am officially approved for a prospectus and hear back from some funders. Then we can make decisions about what to do with the house when we go back to Peru. And by having the house a little longer, we’ll get through the 2-year window and not get hit with the under 2-year taxes at sale. So staying through the summer is today’s plan. The power of acceptable daycare options on a parents’ psyche should not be underestimated.
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