@ekendall09 we’re hanging in! Still have power so we can’t really complain. Mostly trying to come up with endless ways to keep the kids entertained and avoid meltdowns. Soooo ready for bedtime. How are you guys?
@kmalls we have power and are holding up! DD and I braved the snow to play for a little bit, the wind was the worst part, and the fact that it truly isn't snowman snow. Dinner is still cooking away in the crock and SO just headed out to fire up the new snow blower!
@ekendall09 we are ok! We live in one of the coastal towns just north of Boston that has been on the news due to flooding all day so it’s been a stressful one. We live within a stone’s throw of a marsh and the sea water almost reached our property line but our basement is miraculously still dry. Lots of our neighbors were evacuated. We have power and food and no water in the basement so I really can’t complain! I do feel bad I can’t help my DH shovel but I’m going to clean the cars off as my contribution lol. Glad you and @kmalls are good!
It’s sickening how much it costs and all the additional rules that come with it. Every single bank holiday and then some. And on top of that no matter the days you don’t have your baby in childcare for PTO reasons you still pay. We toured 4 different daycares ranging from $225 - $275 a week. It’s a hard pill to swallow that no matter what we will be $12K+ just on childcare a year. But it’s tempororary so that’s the positive
@psuxray07 I can’t wait to order some!! Thanks for the feedback
@frenchiekinplusone oh man! I had almost written "glad i'm not on the coast!" but I wasn't sure exactly where you guys live. I'm glad you have power and are dry! Are you in "the city of sin" (lol trying not to out you too much) or are you south of that?
@babyclarke429 I agree on the days daycare closes! It's ridiculous. It's like...I pay an obscene amount of money that I don't have for you to watch my child because I have to WORK EVERYDAY (not weekends), and I have zero other people to watch him, and I can't take off. And then to have to pay it anyway is so stupid. Like no, I lost a vacation day and had to pay you for not watching him. Thanks. Ours has 2 inservice days and for Christmas and Thanksgiving they were closed 2 days each. Healthcare doesn't close, fools! So many parents work in healthcare. Our daycare gives us 2 weeks a year where if you go on vacation for a week, you can pay half tuition. That's almost never with our schedules though. Haha, sorry for the complaining! I agreed too strongly with your post, lol.
@psuxray07 I couldn't even believe the amount of days they are closed. They also had inservice days as well as 2 day holidays off......the place we chose did offer one week of vacation where you don't have to pay but you have to give them a two week notice. What if there's an emergency and we need to take the time off last minute? some of the things just seemed a little unreasonable. I am in healthcare management and we get a decent amount of time off so it's like I want to use that time that most places don't offer and now its almost a curse because I am paying OOTA to keep him home from daycare. I am definitely not looking forward to it
@babyclarke429 Ours also has 2 inservices and 2 holidays that we pay for. We get 2 half price weeks a year but it's really hard trying to use them because we extremely rarely use PTO to take a whole week off! I juggled with my mom, DH, MIL and myself to get someone watching him everyday the week between Christmas and New Years just to use a week! It's a headache. One of my girlfriends at work though, her daycare is less expensive than mine and only told her last Monday that they were taking a half day Friday! I would have cried.
On the daycare and vacations topic, I think of it the same way I get PTO for my job, they too deserve to have paid time off in their industry. Even if its not convenient to every parent. When we were in a home daycare they took 2 1 week vacations and standard government/bank holidays. With our daycare center its been very similar. They are good about releasing the schedule a year in advance so we can plan ahead and I've often used DD week off from school vacations to take the time off myself and just do a stay-cation. It's not always convenient but it is standard and I think i'd go crazy if I didn't have that time as one of her teachers.
@ekendall09, I'm with you on agreeing they deserve the time too, which is why we went with a center for our daycare needs. We found smaller, cheaper, in home providers but the flexibility just isn't there if there's an emergency (on either side).
Thankfully, our daycare has only ever unexpectedly needed to close once in the 3 years we've used them... this week on Tuesday for two hours because their pipes had frozen. However, because our center is part of a larger organization, they had a newer center on standby to handle overflow and act as backup care for any parents that couldn't flex with a last minute (text sent at 7am the morning of) closure.
Our daycare offers unlimited vacation weeks at 50%, which is kind of nice... except we don't take many full weeks off from care. I'm pretty sure we only use two full weeks per year, maybe three, the rest of our vacation time is spread out across the weeks with a few days here and there.
I honestly just look at daycare like a second mortgage. Our mortgage cost is the same every month, so too will daycare, regardless of the number of hours my kid actually spends there. Making peace with this fact of life (its the same for EVERY childcare provider out there, nanny, in home, center etc) will go a long way to helping find peace in the daycare cost generally.
Also, just think of that pay raise we're all gonna get when our kids are finally out of daycare!
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014! DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
I feel for the daycare workers because I know their wages are poor too. I don't know how much PTO they get but I know they make only $9-10 an hour and they do so much!
I will say too, for FTMs, I found that daycares (during the interview process) are very sterile and rule focused like @babyclarke429 mentioned. However, once you join the daycare, they do become like family... I believe this to be true no matter which kind of provider you go with. We're with a corporate center but I LOVE LOVE LOVE our center, the director/assistant director and my kids' teachers. I'm literally more comfortable with them watching my kids than some family members.
Because of the relationship we've built, our center is really flexible with a lot of the 'rules.' When our kiddos show up to school on a Monday but end up having to be home for the rest of the week due to sickness, they center is supposed to charge us a full week. However, one time I took the time to talk to the director and she cut us some slack and charged us for a vacation week instead. They also don't make us pay to hold our slots when I'm on maternity leave. This is huge and amazing. Since the bulk of my leave is unpaid, we'd be in a rough spot if we had to pay for full-time care for DS and DD1 while home with DD2. This is the corporate 'rule' but our center knows us and our family and guarantees our slots even without keeping up attendance during our roughly 5 months of time away. (Worse case, they would charge us 50% vacation weeks just to keep the slot(s), but they charge us nothing while the kids are home with us on maternity/paternity leave.)
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014! DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
@ekendall09 I agree on the whole deserving PTO thing, but not closing the whole center. They can take their pto time when allowed like everyone else normally at a job. I totally get closing on major holidays, but not for more than that day. The reason many people use it is because they have no one...as in us. It's very hard for my husband to take off work, even months in advance, and I can't always take off. Getting someone to watch DS requires my mom or anyone in my family to take the day off work, and drive to our house, and she lives 3.5 hrs away in another state. It's so frustrating, but at the same time I love his daycare/preschool center, lol. Just gotta complain about it!
I'm nervous about finding a daycare. I'm a nurse, so I work weird hours and days, I work PT days and nights, daycares around here want a min commitment per week of the same days....but I work different days every week - I don't have a set schedule. A part time commitment would be say, every Tues and Thurs....but I don't only work those days...one week I might work Mon, Tues, Sat and the next week I'd work Wed, Thurs etc.
I'll have to ask the other nurses what they do for daycare.
Me: 27 // DH: 30 Married 05/21/2011 TTC Since Feb 2016 RE: Dec 2016 Dx: PCOS 5 rounds of Letrozole 5mg + Ovidrel + TI BFP!!!! June 2017 // EDD: 04/01/2018 IT'S A BOY!
@vintageandrea90 you might want to look at home daycares. I worked very part-time and really weird hours when our first baby was born, and daycare centers just couldn’t accommodate us. We ended up sending DS to a wonderfully loving, flexible home daycare and it worked out really great.
@ekendall09 - I want to compare... I had one last week and it wasn’t great TBH. I laid on top of a big pregnancy pillow, which didn’t really work. Belly was hitting the table and really uncomfortable. I had to roll onto my side which isn’t the same. Did your MT have a table with a belly hole?
@ekendall09 - I want to compare... I had one last week and it wasn’t great TBH. I laid on top of a big pregnancy pillow, which didn’t really work. Belly was hitting the table and really uncomfortable. I had to roll onto my side which isn’t the same. Did your MT have a table with a belly hole?
I second this question! I've had one prenatal massage in three pregnancies and it's the only massage I didn't enjoy. I had to lay on my side, which wasn't particularly comfortable and I've always wondered if the belly holes would be better. DH just asked about booking a massage for me and I told him to just wait until after the baby cuz I disliked the last one so much.
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014! DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
@ekendall09 - I want to compare... I had one last week and it wasn’t great TBH. I laid on top of a big pregnancy pillow, which didn’t really work. Belly was hitting the table and really uncomfortable. I had to roll onto my side which isn’t the same. Did your MT have a table with a belly hole?
I second this question! I've had one prenatal massage in three pregnancies and it's the only massage I didn't enjoy. I had to lay on my side, which wasn't particularly comfortable and I've always wondered if the belly holes would be better. DH just asked about booking a massage for me and I told him to just wait until after the baby cuz I disliked the last one so much.
I looked into quite a few massage places before I booked and it seems like the pillow is more the norm. I have heard of places offering a bed with the hole but apparently that’s not the best for your body.
@ekendall09 - I want to compare... I had one last week and it wasn’t great TBH. I laid on top of a big pregnancy pillow, which didn’t really work. Belly was hitting the table and really uncomfortable. I had to roll onto my side which isn’t the same. Did your MT have a table with a belly hole?
I second this question! I've had one prenatal massage in three pregnancies and it's the only massage I didn't enjoy. I had to lay on my side, which wasn't particularly comfortable and I've always wondered if the belly holes would be better. DH just asked about booking a massage for me and I told him to just wait until after the baby cuz I disliked the last one so much.
I looked into quite a few massage places before I booked and it seems like the pillow is more the norm. I have heard of places offering a bed with the hole but apparently that’s not the best for your body.
I’ve had three prenatal massages with the belly hole and only one was worth the money. The other two were a huge disappointment, which sucked. I’m going to skip them this pregnancy and get more pedis instead.
I had one today I was on my back from some of it which was comfortable and then she had me lay on my side put a pillow between my knees and one for my head and went to work on my back. It was amazing I found myself starting to fall asleep. My lady seemed very knowledgeable on what is most comfortable and fitting for pregnant women and had offered many positions for me to be comfortable. I really think the experience depends on the massage therapist. The pedicure after was just as wonderful as well.
@g_amoss and @ladythrice I’ve gone to the same woman a couple times now and love her. I start on one side and she does my back and side of that leg. Then we roll to other side and do the same. I then go to my back and she does my legs from front, feet and shoulders, neck and head. It’s heavenly. In the side position I have a pillow for between my legs and one by my front and belly. And the massage bed is heated. A New England must!
Re: Weekly Randoms 1/1
Married: 10/3/15
TTC: May 2017
BFP: 7/20/17
EDD: 3/29/18
@psuxray07 I can’t wait to order some!! Thanks for the feedback
Married: 10/3/15
TTC: May 2017
BFP: 7/20/17
EDD: 3/29/18
Thankfully, our daycare has only ever unexpectedly needed to close once in the 3 years we've used them... this week on Tuesday for two hours because their pipes had frozen. However, because our center is part of a larger organization, they had a newer center on standby to handle overflow and act as backup care for any parents that couldn't flex with a last minute (text sent at 7am the morning of) closure.
Our daycare offers unlimited vacation weeks at 50%, which is kind of nice... except we don't take many full weeks off from care. I'm pretty sure we only use two full weeks per year, maybe three, the rest of our vacation time is spread out across the weeks with a few days here and there.
I honestly just look at daycare like a second mortgage. Our mortgage cost is the same every month, so too will daycare, regardless of the number of hours my kid actually spends there. Making peace with this fact of life (its the same for EVERY childcare provider out there, nanny, in home, center etc) will go a long way to helping find peace in the daycare cost generally.
Also, just think of that pay raise we're all gonna get when our kids are finally out of daycare!
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014!
DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
Baby #3: EDD, April 16th, 2016
Because of the relationship we've built, our center is really flexible with a lot of the 'rules.' When our kiddos show up to school on a Monday but end up having to be home for the rest of the week due to sickness, they center is supposed to charge us a full week. However, one time I took the time to talk to the director and she cut us some slack and charged us for a vacation week instead. They also don't make us pay to hold our slots when I'm on maternity leave. This is huge and amazing. Since the bulk of my leave is unpaid, we'd be in a rough spot if we had to pay for full-time care for DS and DD1 while home with DD2. This is the corporate 'rule' but our center knows us and our family and guarantees our slots even without keeping up attendance during our roughly 5 months of time away. (Worse case, they would charge us 50% vacation weeks just to keep the slot(s), but they charge us nothing while the kids are home with us on maternity/paternity leave.)
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014!
DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
Baby #3: EDD, April 16th, 2016
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014!
DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
Baby #3: EDD, April 16th, 2016
I'll have to ask the other nurses what they do for daycare.
Married 05/21/2011
TTC Since Feb 2016
RE: Dec 2016 Dx: PCOS
5 rounds of Letrozole 5mg + Ovidrel + TI
BFP!!!! June 2017 // EDD: 04/01/2018
IT'S A BOY!
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014!
DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
Baby #3: EDD, April 16th, 2016
DS: EDD, December 19th, 2014. Born, December 19th, 2014!
DD: EDD, July 18th, 2016. Born, July 19th, 2016!
Baby #3: EDD, April 16th, 2016
I had one today I was on my back from some of it which was comfortable and then she had me lay on my side put a pillow between my knees and one for my head and went to work on my back. It was amazing I found myself starting to fall asleep. My lady seemed very knowledgeable on what is most comfortable and fitting for pregnant women and had offered many positions for me to be comfortable. I really think the experience depends on the massage therapist. The pedicure after was just as wonderful as well.
goodluck ladies!!