Changes

When we found out that Maggie was coming home, alot of changes were about to take place. One of those changes was in my work situation. I had a wonderful job with excellent benefits (my company pays 100% of all insurance coverages for entire family!) and because of this, I needed to continue to work. As much as I would've loved to be a stay-at-home mom, it just wasn't going to happen at that time.

My company provides 8 weeks PAID maternity leave (seriously!) so of course, I took it :) It was the greatest blessing....to be 100% focused on Maggie and our bonding and attaching to her. After the 8 weeks was up, I had to return to work. I was fortunate enough to work for my boss, who had a deep appreciation for what we were going through with Maggie and understanding our desire to spend as much time with her as possible. So, he made an exception. He allowed me to work from home 2 days a week. This was not something that anyone else had and it's basically against company policy to work from home. With that being said, I knew that this was an answer to prayer. My boss said that he'd let me do it for 3 - 6 months and we'd address the sitaution again after that timeframe. Great. Wonderful. Thank you!

At the end of 2008, during my review, my boss said something along the lines of "hey, you're doing a great job. Enjoy your first Christmas & NY with Maggie and we'll discuss your work hours after the holidays". Ok. Great. And that was the end of that. It was never brought up again.

Move forward another year. Review time again. Scheduling/working from home topic came up again. I wasn't surprised. I was pretty much waiting for it. My boss said that he had absolutely no problem with me working from home, it wasn't a performance issue. It came down to the fact that this was supposed to be temporary and it was against company policy and he had to turn down others' requests, etc. So, I have to return to the office full time.

Honestly, I couldn't get upset about it, because I had already had a whole extra year of being able to stay at home with Maggie and not have to put her in any type of daycare. We had put her in MDO this past Sept, but that was for her benefit, not out of necessity of care. So, I began to research our options. Thankfully, I have an understanding boss who said that there was no rush - I didn't need to return to full time tomorrow. He knew that we would have to make some decisions and changes, and to just keep him informed. I don't want to take advantage of the situation, so I have been working diligently to try and find an alternative.

Maggie's MDO program is only from 9:30 - 2:30, so that option wasn't going to work. I was so disappointed though. She has done so well there, and they absolutely adore her. It's going to be very hard to walk away. They have set the standards high!

So, I went to my first choice...a church that I knew well that has an extended care daycare. I pretty much told myself that this was where she was going to go...until I stopped by for a visit. WOW. Absolutely NOT. No WAY. It was dirty. Depressing. The 2 teachers didn't even make eye contact with me or put on a happy face when I visited the classroom. The kids all looked sad. I immediately knew that this was not the place for Maggie.

Ok. Kick it into high gear. Great. Ok, now what. I called every place I could find. Started with churches first. Really wanted Maggie to stay in Christian environment but very few of them have anything more than MDO. A few did, but they were either 1) too expensive, 2) required that she was potty trained or 3) had no openings. Ok...next option. Day care. No offense to anyone who is reading this that has their kids in daycare, but we really didn't want Maggie in a typical daycare facility. But it was coming down to the wire, so we started to visit a few of those. One place came recommended. It's a big "chain". It was nice. It was expensive. They had openings but they also had 21 kids in Maggie's class. I walked in and it was just total chaos. I'm not quite sure how you can have 21 two & three years old and get anything done. But, I put it on the possibilities, due to the issues mentioned before.

Next day, visited another smaller, privately owned daycare facility close to our house. Owner was very nice. Less expensive. Better hours but it wasn't as nice as I would've liked. It was, though, now our #1 pick. But something just kept pushing me to keep looking.

Tomorrow, I am off to visit the last possibility - another Christian preschool. It's been very discouraging to see the lack of quality and quantity in care for our kiddos. I'm exhausted just from calling, emailing, researching and visiting.

Please pray that we will have the wisdom to choose the best place for Maggie. One where she will feel safe & appreciated; where she can learn and grow; where we feel comfortable in placing our precious one in their hands.

Tune in tomorrow to find out what happens!