For new parents, every day brings a new challenge. These days though, we are facing one of our biggest challenge yet.
Our steadfast daycare providers (Noemi & Isadora) are returning to Brazil, forcing us to finally bring in an outsider to watch the boys while Elisa's at work 3 days a week.
We weighed our options carefully . . .
1) Traditional daycare: like most parents, we first checked with the best and most highly recommended daycare centers in Northern Virginia, and like most parents, we were shocked by the lack of availability (wait-list from 1 to 3 years) and outrageous fees (starting at $200 per week per child).
2) "In-home" daycare: Like many places, Arlington county issues licenses to individuals whose homes comply with regulations permitting one person to care for up to 5 children at a time (including their own children, if applicable). This option is more affordable, starting around $125 per week per child), but, like option #1, it's a huge inconvenience to have to take the boys somewhere and pick them up during rush hour.
3) Nanny: the most economical choice is finding someone to come to our apt. to watch the boys. The problem with this option is that we become "household employers" if wages exceed a certain amount ($1000/quarter) and open a fiscal can-of-worms that we'd rather avoid.
We thought to ourselves, "wouldn't it be great if we could just leave them with a neighbor," that is, someone in our own apartment building. So I posted a flyer, and sure enough, a lady responded, and we met with her on Wednesday.
In an effort to cut costs, we're hoping to utilize more than one of these options, for example, leaving the boys with the neighbor one day, getting a nanny one day and maybe I can work from home one afternoon a week.
This patchwork daycare would work best for us and be most cost effective, but it's proven difficult to find a Nanny that is willing to work only one or two days a week, and days that change according to Elisa's schedule . . .
Of course, the most difficult part by far is leaving our boys with a complete stranger. Show all
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
option 4: Get some of the grandparents to retire early, hah.
ReplyDeleteWe were blessed to have my little sister donate her summer to us (she'll be a college senior this year), and it was awesome to have her take care of Jack for ~3 months, because you know you can trust her to love your kid. We ended up paying her the same rate as we paid the daycare for the first year, because we were both so happy with her. (but don't tell Uncle Sam, since that puts us at >$1k/qtr.)
We'll keep yall in our prayers, and hopefully it'll turn out that you have a good relationship with the people taking care of Vincent and Adrian.