It's important to be prepared.
A little bit on the things that they don’t teach you in
school
I have spoken to some in the past about my aspirations to
someday write a book for girls on all of the things that they should know about
the world that no one told them about. I feel, and I have met quite a few other
people in agreement, that I was not completely prepared for the real world and
that there were quite a few things that I did not know and had to learn the
hard way.
Aside from my other post on random M-facts, this has been
brewing in my mind all week. I am brain tired today but I won’t have any time
for a quick minute to write anything more so I am just going to write this when
the opportunity presents itself, which is now.
Firstly, this week for me has been insane. Lots of good
stuff though. I am smiling every single day all day and giggling about this and
that. It’s a nice change. It has been awhile.
There has also been a ridiculous amount of bullshit this
week. More so than usual. It helps that there is a bit of good and it makes it
easier to just slough off. I’ve got a fresh layer of Scotch Guard and it slides
right off. (That stuff is awesome and saving my car and furniture btw). I’m not
going to outline my personal life problems particularly but I felt that it gave
a good opportunity to discuss something on the topic of children and
reliability.
Every parent knows that gripping feeling that is had when
all of a sudden babysitter plans fall through or dramatically don’t work out in
a major way. That happened to me this week. It’s awesome. I love this feeling
so much of scrambling around and trying to negotiate care arrangements because
I have a funny work schedule. Yes I have 10 hour days sometimes not including
my driving time. But I get a 3.75 day weekend :D
If I could seriously get like a 16 year old guy to hang out
at my house all day, I would buy his video games, his food and leave cash for
him to order pizza. I have a really comfortable couch and wifi. All he would
have to do is sit there and make sure my children don’t kill each other and let
the dog out every few hours. Socially interact with them a little bit. Maybe
show them how to play the video games. That’s like the bare minimum it takes to
watch my girls. It’s about as much as their dad would do with them on his days
off back in the day. They know all about Grand Theft Auto, Zombies, Mario and
Zelda.
Does anyone have a teenage son to spare for the next month?
I’m now in a scramble and trying to figure out what I am
going to do for when school starts and I have to work all day. How will my
children make it from school to home?
They aren’t baby babies anymore. However, I am single
mother. I don’t have that other person around who can shuffle schedules with me
to make childcare work, or hell, stay home with the kids and do stuff with them
while I go to work (a house husband would be AWESOME). I have some family
support but no one right around the corner anymore. It is also summer vacation
and I voluntarily withdrew my children from their old school for the summer.
Next summer I won’t really have that option because life will revolve around
the real school schedule.
Babysitters can be hard to come by. So are jobs with
flexible schedules (kind of). So are jobs with regular hours that revolve
around the world of provided childcare.
My point is, this is one of those things you don’t think
about.
Who is going to take care of my kids when I can’t? Who is
going to take care of them when that person can’t watch them? Or that person?
The thing is, you really have to have like a tiered
hierarchy list of available babysitters. Your spouse is not always a reliable
backup. Your parents/siblings/family are not always reliable backups.
I love that last-minute scramble as well. That sheer panic
and anxiety felt when you have to be to work in 3 hours, you have a 30 minute
commute (from your house) and you have no idea where you will have to shuffle
your children off to or if anyone is even available to watch them or if you
will have to call off of work last minute.
I used to have this all in place. I had a list of backups
and then backups for those backups and everyone was within 10 minutes. I had a
job I could call off if I got sick or didn’t have child care. I am working on
that now.
But I’ll say this, it is a scary thing when you don’t have a
job you can easily call off of. Is the hundreds of dollars I am about to
sacrifice by staying home with my kids worth more than a $50 babysitter? Nope. Do
I have a choice?
So that’s that. I have more on other subjects but I suppose
one of the rules is just to have a ton of backups as far as who is around to
take care of your child or at least sit with them.
And if anyone has a spare teenaged boy/girl to lend out. Let
me know what’s up.
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