Working Late

It is 10pm on a Friday night and I am just leaving the office right now. I stayed to clean up my desk for Monday so that I wouldn't be behind and the sad thing? I still haven't gotten it all done.

I want to apologize for my lack of interesting posts during this challenge...perhaps not the BEST month to decide to do it. Perhaps I will try again soon with better luck but with only a few more days left I didn't want to drop the ball so this is it!

Our first book club meeting

Today was our first book club meeting, which was suppose happen this evening but because of busy schedules we opted to take a long lunch together rather then reschedule.

None of us have finished The Happiness Project but that worked out fine as we ended up focusing primarily on the first chapter, January, during our hour away from the office. Mainly because it is about the idea of de-cluttering and organization your life to aid in making your life less stressful and more happy...something all three of us would love to do.

I think one of the nicest thing about having something like this is that we can get together to talk about something POSITIVE and PROACTIVE, rather then getting caught up in conversations that deal mainly in the past of What Ifs and/or negativity. We are going to continue with this book for the foreseeable future until all three of us have completed it as I think there is quite a bit of conversation topics in it. Technically we could probably make our monthly meetings about one chapter (month) at a time as she takes on new challenges/themes each month. We'll see how it goes.

We've decided to meet the first Thursday of each month and hold each other accountable for the little challenges we give our selves. I now feel re motivated to finish organizing my house, office and even my Sparks supplies at the church. I'm going to attempt a few projects for the month of March. Because of my busy work schedule lately I'm not sure it would be realistic to turn it into a 30 day challenge were a do a project a day (it's hard enough blogging everyday!) but I'm going to set a deadline of 30 days for some specific projects, and who knows maybe I'll actually blog about my progress.

Making Up

I suppose I should put equal effort into a post about how D is NOT a huge ass. While I was angrily writing yesterdays post I think it was finally dawning on him that this wasn't just a 'disagreement' and that I was actually upset as he made a few attempts to engage in a more casual conversation, but I refused.

I then went upstairs to bed where I read a book. He followed shortly after and silently came up to me and gave me a hug. Of course I had decided to still be 'mad' at him and didn't say anything.

D is not a fighter, he avoids arguments...and by avoid I mean PHYSICALLY avoids, he will leave a room if it looks like I'm going to argue with him. (Which is interesting since he seems to enjoy pushing my buttons all the time and listen to me 'lecture him' but once it gets serious he gets the hell out of there). So when I didn't make any comments after the hug he went back downstairs to play video games.

Of course I seem to be completely incapable of ever holding a grudge when it comes to him so when we woke up this morning and he asked if I was still mad at him I said no.

Men might not be completely stupid....

Disagreeing

Tonight I asked D what he thought of putting our future children in private school verses public. Of course when he found out it cost $10,000/year or more he was completely against it, stating that it was a waste of money. I, of course, disagree but don't really feel that its a decision that needs to be done anytime soon.

Some how the conversation turned to adoption, and how if I couldn't have children (my OB-GYN says she expects me to get pregnant easily in the next few months so this isn't an issue yet...) we would adopt. Apparently D extremely disagrees with this idea. He says that if I can't have children we would adjust and live our lives without kids. To me this is the worst idea I've ever heard him have.

In fact I told him that if that day ever came and he refused I would leave and adopt on my own. You would think at this point that he would realize that maybe this is extremely important to me and that he would at least meet my half way by saying that we could discuss this if it ever became an issue but nope he insists that he wouldn't want to raise 'someone else's kid', that he wouldn't be able to bond or something like that.

My agruement is that if he can bond with his stupid cat (okay we have 3 cats, 2 of which were mine and 1 that was his before we got together - he has a ridiculous attachment to his and I kind of hate it because of that...and by hate, I mean I get jealous of a stupid cat on more then one occasion) then I'm sure he could bond with an adopted child. He then says "That's silly he's not human, its not the same thing". Which I agree "HE'S NOT HUMAN" and yet he loves him. At this point I'm ready to cry because I'm so frustrated with him that I tell him I am really mad at him and end the conversation.

I don't think he gets how important this is as he tried to start up another trivial conversation. I'm currently ignoring him.

Now I realize that in all likelihood this will NEVER be a real issue but it still pisses me off that he can be so shallow. I also realize that if it were a real issue he would probably come around once he saw how important it was to me. It doesn't change the fact that I'm currently frustrated.

Men are stupid. Period.

Why child care scares the bejeezes out of me...

Since I already started talking about child care, kinda, in my previous post I figure I should just continue on that thread.

One of the biggest unknowns for me about starting a family is what will happen after my MAT leave ends and our child turns 1. Ideally I would love to spend as much time as possible with our child(ren) during the first 5 years, before they enroll into kindergarten but I also realize a few important points:

1. If I want a second child I want to qualify for MAT leave again, which means I need to get the required hours to do so in the 52 weeks prior to the second birth.
2. D and I live a certain lifestyle, we aren't over spenders or huge partiers but we also aren't extremely thrifty, which means that not having my income would suck. We would have to rework our budget to either stop/reduce our retirement savings investments or cut out a huge amount of 'extras'.
3. I actually enjoy my job and would like to continue to work.

If I were to go back to work after my MAT leave, which seems the most likely outcome, I need to consider what I will do for child care.

D's mother is retired and would probably love looking after our child(ren) but I don't think it is a realistic option to have her be our full time daycare for the following reasons:

1. She lives 30 minutes outside of the city. If I were to drop the child(ren) off in the morning it would mean that I would have to leave over an hour before my work started as I'd be driving in the opposite direction and then doubling back. Alternatively she could come to our place every day but then we would want to compensate for her fuel (which would still be cheaper then public/private daycare centres/homes). This also would be difficult on bad road days, meaning I would end up calling in 'sick' those days.
2. I'm not sure she would like to commit to babysitting 5 days a week. She also checks in on her mother and sister weekly, as well as takes substituting positions as an EA (educational assistant - which is what she did before retirement) once in awhile. We would not be compensating her her lost wages so that isn't fair to her.
3. I don't really want her to be the one to parent our children instead of me. I think D's parents are wonderful, generous people that raised two great guys BUT I do NOT agree with a lot of their views on things, specifically pertaining to minorities...

I think that I would be able to work out a way that I could work from home 2-3 days of the week and since most of my job isn't time sensitive I could be flexible as to when I put those hours in; during nap time or when D came home from work. This would leave me only needing child care for the other half.

Options for this could be:

1. My mother-in-law for at least one of these days. I think asking her to commit to one day a week would look after some of the above issues and also allow her time with her grandchild(ren).
2. Licensed Child Care at a centre (if I can find one that accepts part time spots AND is somewhere that I would want my child attending) which costs $27/day until they are 2 and then $18/day until 5...not cheap
3. Unlicensed Child Care at some one's home (again if I can find one that accepts part time spots AND I trust to take my child) which can cost even more then licensed child care.
4. Childcare Swap with another mother (or two!), where I would look after their child once a week and they would watch mine once. This is something that I would ideally like to do but ONLY if I could find one or two mothers that I trust...in other words friends.
5. Nursery/Preschool which is an option once they are 3 and then I need to look into somewhere like Balmoral Hall, as I mentioned in the previous post, or a public centre which I don't know how much it would be.

If I can't work from home part time and need to go back full time I will be looking at 20% or more of my net income going to child care in the first year. When I go back to work after the second child that will jump to 30% or more until they are both in Kindergarten. This is doable but not desirable since our budget will already be accommodating 10% of our net income for the presence of a child in our house. Basically child's aren't cheap and I am so happy that we are not low income earners as I'm not sure how they do it!

Public or Private

I am all about planning ahead and I thought my research had been very comprehensive but then I had a conversation with my friend this morning at the gym, about the Baby & Kids Show that she went to on the weekend with her husband. She is due in July and is just as much of a planner as me so our conversations tend to come back to her pregnancy and our shared ideas of parenting (cloth diapers, breast feeding, etc) as well as discussions on things we don't exactly see eye to eye on but respect each others view points (specifically natural birth...I say hell no, bring on the drugs...).

I had asked whether it was worth attending, and was not surprised to hear that it was much like the Wedding Show, great for those that haven't done any research on their own but not much new. Although she said there were a few booths of interest. One of them being Balmoral Hall.

Balmoral Hall is an ALL GIRLS private school that offers child care (2-3years), preschool (3-5years), as well as a K-12 program. She is considering putting her daughter, if that is what she has, into their program starting at the preschool level, part time, and then K-12.

I love the idea of offering my future children the best education possible for them in our city and perhaps an all girls school would offer that.

From their website:

"What are the benefits of a girls' school like Balmoral Hall School?

At Balmoral Hall School, our goal is not simply to teach an enriched curriculum. Our programs are designed to build confidence, competence and what experts call "connectedness", which refers to being a meaningful part of something other than self. Our mission is to help girls build well-balanced foundations for personal and professional success in a changing world.


Our teachers understand how girls learn. They are dedicated to bringing out the best in each girl, by encouraging her strengths and providing support in areas that are more difficult for her. While our programs are demanding and our expectations high, the atmosphere is co-operative and supportive. It is an environment in which every girl feels free to believe in herself, to speak out and take academic risks.


The success of the BH approach is evident. On average, 99% of our graduates attend the university or college of their choice, and over 75% benefit from scholarships. In addition, our students are more likely to pursue careers in math, science and technology than girls in co-ed public schools."

This is of course ONLY an option if we end up having daughters. The next question is what do we do if we have two kids and ONE of them is a boy? I don't think putting our son in public school and daughter in private seems to be fair but the majority of private schools in our city are predominately CHRISTIAN based programs. As D is agnostic at best and I do not identify with any particular religion, I don't feel that these schools would best represent what we want our children to learn. I don't mind a mild religious undertone, which Balmoral Hall apparently has (as in prayer in the morning) but I don't want my children attending bible classes as part of their curriculum.

There is one other private school, which is co-ed, that I think is an option and that is St. John's Ravenscourt. My main concern is that its tuition is $2000 more/year then Balmoral, which is one thing is the child is only in it for high school but all the way through K-12 makes it quite pricey.

Another option is Montessori for our future sons but that is only offered until grade 4 so we would still need to determine whether they would enter public or private afterwards and currently I only see SJR as a private option for them.

And then there is public schools...which is a whole other bunch of questions.

So now I will be looking into the best options. At least figuring out what will happen for preschool.

Ughhh

I completely dropped the ball this weekend! So much for posting everyday for 30 days. I will attempt to compensate by posting 3 different posts today.

Lets see if I can do it...