When It Gets Stressful

So, Halle is 3-weeks old as of last night and already we need to worry about daycare waiting lists. I had hoped this kind of scrambling was isolated to places like Manhattan, where your child's preschool dictates her elementary, middle and high school placement and toddlers are forced to interview for positions, but alas, even Portland has its upper and lower echelons of daycare quality. And what kind of parent doesn't want the best for her child? That's the rub. Admit to wanting the best, and you sound like a Tiger Mother. Do anything less, and feel like a real jerk.

There are two major impediments to high quality daycare: cost and availability. A well-regarded, certified Montessori program (our favorite, for educational and philosophical reasons) runs around $15,000/year for a day that ends at 2:45pm. Even of you can afford that kind of tuition (and I'm really not sure we can), the waiting lists are miles long. But before you object to the price tag, it's worth knowing that every recommended facility I've looked into costs over $1000/month for infant care. Then there are the mock Montessori programs, ones that use the label but aren't certified (the educational equivalent of "all natural" food items). I interviewed at some of those places after graduate school and turned down the jobs because the teaching was so abysmal. In one place, I watched a teacher pass around photos of her son in Iraq, holding a machine gun, to a class of preschoolers, all the while explaining that the dark people in the photos were our enemies and her son was keeping us all safe. Jesus H. Christ. And finally you have the family daycare in people's houses and the corporate daycare facilities. I don't like either of those options. I'm really frustrated that I have to work full-time but instead of making and saving money, I'll be spending pretty much everything I earn so that other people can raise my child. It might be time to look for a better job...

 Well, the babe is waking so I have to sign off. It's almost lunch time and I haven't showered or brushed my teeth or done laundry or even gone the three blocks to Les Schwab to have my tire pressure checked out. I'm so sleepy it hurts...but man, I can't complain too much; this beats my day job. I mean, whenever Tom or I get frustrated we look at this face:

How could we resist such kisses?