The end of a very beautiful daycare?

This morning I finally admitted to Mr. b that I’m starting to stress out about Auntie Daycare. I knew this day would eventually come and it’s finally here. And he’s ready to start looking elsewhere, too. For him, it’s largely the inconvenience of driving across town. If we’re carpooling, in the morning we take Kirk to my sister’s, then he drops me off, then he goes to work. After a full day of work, he returns to pick me up, then we go over to my sister’s for the boy, then we head home. It’s about an hour and a half each way. So that’s three hours everyday. We can find something closer. We’d gotten used to all the driving. But it’s too much. Mr. b figures it’s worth $10 a day in increased daycare costs for the simple convenience of not having to drive that distance anymore--even adding on another $5 per day in gas savings.

I don’t know how we’re going to afford real daycare. We’ve got four new bills to deal with right now: new furniture, Sears portraits, and each of our student loans that just came back from maternity leave forbearances. Mr. b says not to worry about that, that we should first find a new place and then we’ll figure out the money. But my brain doesn’t work that way.

I just can’t handle leaving Kirk with my sister everyday anymore. Sure, she’ll pick him up or drop him off on occasion and we won’t have that flexibility anymore. But the last time she picked him up was because she had a morning doctor’s appointment that she neglected to tell me about until the day before. So I had to stay home with him until she was done. Last week he was only over there for two days. Monday she was out of town, Thursday Kirk was having his shot reactions, and Friday A2 was sick. I still had to pay her for the full week. I know I’ll have to do that at real daycare but it’s a business so it’ll feel less like I’m getting ripped off. She’s family! Why won’t she give me a break? Besides, with real daycare I won’t have to keep Kirk home because one of the other kids is sick. They won’t be there in the first place.

And there will be defined rules about what the daycare provides and what I provide. My sister recently asked for a $10 per week raise since she feeds Kirk lunch everyday now. That's great. I don't have to make sure she's stocked up with snacks and junk. But apparently diapers weren't included in her request. So I still have to bring those, and wipes. I know for a fact that day care decreases once the child reaches a certain age so she's definitely working contrary to convention there.

Plus, frankly, my sister is kinda bitchy with her kids. She always been the difficult kid, the challenging family member, so it's nothing new and it's not surprising. Oh, she’s a good mom and I trust her and all. But Kirk’s getting bigger and he’ll start noticing things like A1 getting scolded for something that’s not a scoldable offense. That bothers me and I don’t want him to have to deal with it. It also bothers me how she tries to parent him during family gatherings. After Kirk’s naming ceremony on Sunday she was all about trying to feed him and change him and just do everything. I know in her mind she thinks she was "helping" since we were also hosting the reception in our house. But dammit, he’s our son, not hers. We’re the ones raising him, not her. I guess it goes hand-in-hand with the hurt I felt when my dad called her with questions and not me. But I also don’t think it’s unreasonable.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get our budget figured out. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to find a new daycare provider. I really don’t know how my sister is going to react to "getting fired". Because even though her offer of doing daycare was always supposed to be only temporary, and last only as long as we wanted it to, I know she’s going to view it as getting canned. That’s just how she is. And it’s going to be a big messy family fight with my mom trying not to take sides and my brother and his wife saying "I told you she sucks" and my dad secretly kinda agreeing with my brother but also not wanting to take sides and it’s just going to bite and be even more stress. But I think it’s for the best in the end. I have to at least keep telling myself that.