Childcare Wars, Take 3: The Wrath of the Working Mom

Does the title of this post sound like some sort of kickass action movie?

It should, because that was totally my intention.

Well, it helps if you say the title in a super deep and corny voice. Try it… “The WRATH of the WORKING MOOOOOMMM!”

See, much better.

Frankly, finding childcare is pretty much an action movie, a drama and a comedy all rolled into one spectacular blockbuster. A blockbuster with poop jokes.

I wrote about our first try with an in-home childcare, which turned out to be run by a hoarder. I also wrote about our second try with a professional childcare center that I was initially super excited about… until Jack ended up being sick all month long.

We quit the childcare center in the fall and my mom took Jack for 4 days each week until the end of the year. At that point, we started with try #3…. the nanny.

I haven’t written about our experience with our nanny because I was kind of afraid to jinx things. I mean, what if she seemed super nice and turned out to be horrible within a couple of weeks? Thankfully though, it seems that the third time really is the charm when it comes to our adventures in childcare.

Based on a friend’s suggestion, I posted an advertisement on Care.com. I wasn’t really sure what to write though, so I looked around at a bunch of other posts to figure out how to properly word mine.

Here is what I ended up with:

Reliable and Friendly Nanny Needed for Fridays
We are looking for a nanny to come to our home and care for our son on Fridays from 7:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. We need someone who is trustworthy, reliable and friendly! Our 10-month-old son loves to play, so we want someone who would like to get down on the floor and play with him. We are looking for someone who has previous infant/toddler childcare experience and will require references. Both my husband and I work full time, so we need a nanny who arrives promptly at 7:30 a.m. so that we can start our long commutes. Also very important, must be a non-smoker and have CPR training.

Once I posted the advertisement online and direct messaged it to some of the people on my “favorites” list, I received about a dozen inquiries. Some were great and some were a bit more ridiculous. My favorite was the very sweet sounding older lady who said that she didn’t have CPR training, but didn’t need it because she is “a worrier who pays very close attention and totally avoids harmful situations in the first place.” Um… no.

My intention was to narrow the list down to maybe 4 or 5 applicants to do phone interviews… but there was only one person who I immediately loved. She passed the phone interview with flying colors and within a couple minutes at our house for the in-person interview, Jack crawled over and happily sat in her lap.

So it looks like our childcare saga has FINALLY come to an end! Megan has been with us for 4 months so far and has been doing an excellent job. She’s super friendly, professional and takes great care of Jack. The best part is that she makes my life easier and in addition to caring FOR our son, she cares ABOUT him.

I do worry though that someone will steal her away from me and I’ll have to start this process all over again. There is also the drawback of Jack not having regular playtime with other children. I’m hoping to be able to join some kind of playgroup in my area or maybe just start regularly attending the children’s group that meets at the local library on Saturdays.

Do you guys have any suggestions for children’s groups or activities that work for a 14 month old?