Childcare Dilemma

Yesterday I found out we will be facing a childcare dilemma. Since Tabby was about 2 months old and I started back to work on a part-time basis, we’ve had one sitter who we adore. She came recommended by a coworker and we’ve loved sending our kids to her house for nearly four years now. My kids have a second home there and she treats them like members of her family. It has been pretty much an ideal situation. But yesterday I got confirmation on something that we knew was probably coming. Our beloved sitter is retiring.

Right now she has four kids in her care, but this fall two of them will go off to kindergarten … she is willing to keep going for another year until Tabby is in kindergarten, but after that she will be done. The only thing is, we have been considering sending Tabby to an all-day preschool. Matt registered her last month and she is on the waiting list. We got through last year when we tried, but we don’t know if we will this year. And if Tabby winds up going there, our sitter will retire this fall. It really isn’t worth it to her to keep just one kid … which I completely understand.

So a big part of me does not want to rock the boat. That part would much rather keep things the way they are and deal with having to find a new solution for Ben next year, but on the off-chance we get Tabby into the all-day preschool, we would almost certainly be able to get Ben in as well and since this preschool is hard to get into (and seems to get harder every year), that is a huge bonus and one that’s hard to overlook.

There are, of course, other options, but the all-day preschool I’ve been mentioning is run by our local public schools. It incorporates a very good curriculum that the kids go on to use in kindergarten and it is also quite cost-effective, probably half of what the others cost, much nearer to what we pay now. The other options are just as good and we can even probably afford them when Tabby is in school and we can devote funds for two kids to just one, though at least the first year, we will still have to pay $300/month for Tabby’s full-day kindergarten and there will need to be childcare for summer. We’ve been looking forward for a while now to having less childcare costs. That $$ can go so many places … as I’m sure you can well imagine.

The hardest part in all of this is just the change. We like where we are. It’s been comfortable and easy. I don’t relish the idea of taking Ben to a new place all on its own. Ben has not done well on his own in semi-familiar places (like the gym daycare). He is used to having his sister around and looks to her for comfort. Beyond that, our schedules are carefully crafted around the current situation. It works if Matt’s here or out of town. I know logically that it might be just as good, even possibly easier and we will get used to all of it. But in the words of Garth Algar, “We fear change.”