thoughts about daycare

I am a working mother.  It is my reality.  The reality of our home.  I was raised in a household where my mom was home with me from my infant days until I was in high school.  My mom was wonderfully involved in our lives...she volunteered at our schools, was really active in PTA, was a Brownie girl scout leader for years, was amazing with after school homework help, a fundraiser extraordinaire, and drove my sisters around to our gazillion activities - not to mention all of the fun stuff she planned for my sisters and I to do all the time....she was super mom.  I want to be like her.

So.  How do I get to be supermom when I'm also a doctor?  These are rocky waters that I am trying to tread.  I don't know how to do both...especially since I don't really know how to do either one!  I'm a new doctor!  I'm a [relatively] new mother!  But I am bound and determined to do both...to do both well...and enjoy it all.  I want to have it all.  It's still up in the air as to whether that can actually happen.  Certain compromises are inevitable.

Fortunately, while we have been in New York we found a way for my husband and I to both work in our desired fields.  (To remind you...my husband is a high school English teacher...he has been a long term sub while we've been in New York)  We had a day care provider....and she was our angel!  Living in a community where we don't have family, and friends are limited to the guys I work with...we had to seek outside help.  I had a real issue with this at first.  It was difficult to drop Clara off.  I would cry.  I would WEEP.  Seriously...weep.  But it got easier for me as I saw how much Clara loved it.  Our particular day care provider watches a few children around Clara's age...so she had friends!  Friends that she would get to play with all day!  How fun is that!?  Sometimes she cried when she would get picked up because she wanted to stay and play...those tears were music to my ears!  Also, she would talk about her little friends...we would ask about her day and she would squeal her little friends' names with delight..."LEXI!" "JAYLEN!" "AIDEN!"  By the time we had to take Jack to daycare, I didn't even bat an eye. 

Though we found a wonderful environment for Clara and Jack here in New York...it's still not an ideal situation.  Obviously, I want to be with my babies 24/7 - I do - I really really do.   But it's not in the cards...especially since I went and took out over a quarter million dollars in loans to be a doctor...because mama now needs to pay those bad boys off and taking a couple years to be at home with my small kiddos isn't possible.  So daycare has been such a help for us...and at $50 per day for both kids, it was relatively affordable (which is actually on the super cheap end of day care in this town...most places were upwards of $300 per WEEK!  Cost is a variable that will be interesting as we move to a new region of the country.)

Now that we are relocating to a new community, we begin the daunting task of finding a *NEW* caring environment for our little ones, once again.  Wish us luck!