Childcare.  It makes me CRAZY.  I don’t know if its ‘cos we live in a big city or if its just my bad luck.  But man, its been hard.  Really hard.

We were lucky, we had a blessed two year reprieve from childcare woes when we found our beloved nanny, H.  She was (is) amazing and truly became an honorary member of our little family.  She was offered a great job abroad and we were happy for her to follow her passion, but we were sad to see her go.

So here we are back in the muck, fighting for good childcare options.  You see in this town, daycare spaces are few and far between.  You literally have to put your kid on waitlists in utero.  Seriously.  I did this.  For weeks, I filled in application forms and sent off cheques to cover administration fees.  Once Shorty #1 was born and my return to work was 3 months in sight, I started calling around to check our waitlist positions.  328, 127, 222 – we were miles from the finish line.  And then just as despair was setting in, #30.  We were close, with 3 months to go surely a spot could/ would open for us.  Next month I save myself the heartache and called this one centre to find out we were now #128.  What.  The.  F%^&.  Are you kidding me?  How did we go down?  So after writing a scathing email and requesting a refund of my paltry $10, I set off to explore other options.

We ended up with a disastrous combo of a nanny share where the other Mom was a nightmare and a home daycare situation with a woman who ended up being completely nuts.  She actually hurt our kid to teach her a lesson about biting.  (I know I can sometimes embellish for comedic effect – but this actually happened, in 2008, in Canada – I am not kidding).

Finally we ended up in a great daycare that was our home away from home (and still is).

When #2 was on her way, we decided that the smart thing to do was hire a full time Nanny.  This is when H arrived on the scene and saved the day!  All was great for 2 years, until our dear H moved on.

Here’s where things get interesting…

Enter the new Nanny.  At first she was great.  We thought she was amazing.  Kids liked her, she seemed sweet.  Then one day she texted (texted!) to say she wouldn’t be coming in for a week (!) because her son was sick in the hospital.  Three days later we realized she was in Vegas and hadn’t learned that you should log out of your Facebook account when you’re using your boss’ iPad.  We sent her a lovely email telling her she was terminated effective immediately and oh yeah, could she put $10 on red for us?

So we are back on the hunt.  My stress level is high.  We’ll keep you posted and wish us luck.  We need it… again!