Child Care Rant

Here's my rant for the month: I hate child care! I hate finding it and I hate paying for it. 

Perry and I bought have full-time jobs, which makes paying for child care fairly pricey. On days that we need care, I have to work at least 5 hours just to break even! It seems like such a waste, but at this point I can't imagine not having a full-time job. I would love to be able to stay home with my boys all day, but I just don't think that I could do it mentally. 

I had Hunter when I was 20 years old. Because I was/am so young, no one in my network of friends have kids yet. And only a handful are married. Its really frustrating for me because I would love to have play dates and such with other moms. I think that if I was able to connect face to face with other moms, or people none the less, I could handle the long days at home. But I sadly don't see that happening at this point in time. 

So for now we're stuck with child care. Sort of. When I had Hunter, I was allowed to bring him to work with me. It was wonderful. He was an angel. Hardly ever cried! But eventually that day came when he was just too old to keep bringing along so I found a nice family daycare to watch him couple days a week. Nicki was amazing! I loved her! We had been using her for about a year when she decided to close her daycare. I'm still really bummed about it. Since then we've been struggling to find someone to meet our standards. 

Our last one we were using for about 7 months. She was great with the boys, but not so helpful when it came to potty training. Or reliability. Quite a few times I received a text message the night before saying that she couldn't watch the boys the next day. I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating that is. I am lucky to have a sister that is willing to help out whenever possible, and a job that is fairly flexible. But the last time it happened, I just called it quits with her. We had paid in advance and still had 11 days left, though she says it was only 8. She agreed that she would pay us back. A month later we still haven't gotten any of it, nor will she answer her phone when I call. 

Child care is the root of all my stress. For the most part. Mostly because when we can't find someone to watch the kids, I'm the one that has to call in to work to switch shifts with someone or to simply call off of work. I hate getting unreliable attached to my name. Because I'm not! Clearly I'm under a lot of stress right now. I hate how I feel like crying every time I think about child care. I just want to get my money back and move on. I really don't want to have to take her to small claims court or have Perry report her to Labor Relations. But if that's how she's going to be... I just want a reliable day care!!