The catering kitchen I do deliveries for hired me full-time. Overall, this is pretty good news–I need the money and I need the health insurance, and this job pays better than most entry-level jobs around here.
The deliveries were great, because they paid me mileage as well as an hourly rate, but I knew that eventually the higher-ups would catch on that they were paying WAY too much for them. The tide was definitely turning that way, so when one of the full-time girls quit and they offered me her job, I thought I’d better jump at it.
I’m feeling a little guilty about having to go from basically SAHM to daycare for the kids, BUT…lately the kids have gone with me to do Head Start deliveries, and seeing them walk into those daycares like they were entering a kiddie wonderland made me realize that THEY aren’t the one who are hurting here; I’m the one who will have to deal with missing out on some of the little things. And I suppose that I can’t expect to manage to stay home as much as I was if I’m going to single-parent from here out, hmm? I think it’ll be fine–they love their daycare provider, and I’m still done by 3:30 on a long day, so we have a lot of evening family time.
Still carrying papers, but hopefully I can eventually work the budget out to a point that I can quit that, or at least drop one of the more time-consuming routes.
AND, this is a very nice benefit of the new job: Since it’s a kitchen, there’s FOOD to take home at the end of hte day!! Over the last ten days or so, I’ve managed to feed the family 5 or 6 times with leftovers. For a family of 5 (6 if you count todd, which of course we must), that’s a pretty good deal.
Not my most exciting update, but still…it’s nice to sometimes have a normal boring life.
I remember daycare for the kids. When the first guy started I was amazed at how blase his mother was about it all. After he’d been going a few weeks I had to pick him up one day. When he saw me and realised it was time to go he cried. I asked his mother and she said he did it nearly every day he just loved daycare.
Good luck bodypoet! I’m facing a similar transition. How old are the younger ones? My oldest daughter did part-time daycare from 3 months to 2 years and I hated every minute of it – even when I’d found an excellent provider who was a great match. For the middle child I was able to work around it so that she didn’t end up in daycare til she was about 2 1/2 and by that point she needed it! She’s five years younger than her sister and she really needed the socialization and the change in environment and just the extra stimulation. My son is now 2 1/2 (8 years after the last one!) and I’ve recently put him in day care one morning a week mostly for his benefit since I work at home during the day. (And it helps me to to get phone calls done and things like that) He loves it and doesn’t even look back to say goodbye. I will soon be working a different job probably during the day so he’ll need to go more, but I think he will be happy. He loves going to “see the kids” and he gets out a lot of energy that he needs to expend. It’s going to be weird for me having managed my schedule so that I’m home during the day for so long, but it’s time for all of us. I’m also recently separated from my husband, so this is a necessity as well. Best of luck!
My poor mother…on my first day of preschool I took off down the hall into the room and never looked back. I’m fairly sure she still hasn’t entirely forgiven me for that.
