Childcare has always been a huge issue for me. My first pregnancy resulted in twins. Everywhere I looked, the cost of daycare was more than what I could make. I was forced to stay home until they turned one year old when the price dropped. The same thing happened when I had my third child. I put all three in daycare when the baby turned one, but every time one of them got so much as the sniffles, I had to take off from work while still paying for daycare and daycare was expensive. This did not please my employer. So I looked for in-home daycare providers in my price range, but it is so difficult to find good people who are happy to see my kids, treat them well and provide them good nutrition.

More than once I have caught the babysitter doing nothing, eating cookies, not playing with my kids, not feeding them anything but crackers and PB&J every day, the baby in a nasty diaper, etc., and it is so frustrating. I can't afford anything great and I can't seem to find someone capable, competent, intelligent and dependable. In fact, I fired my sitter yesterday because the second I walked in the door, my kids were crying because they were hungry. She didn't bother to feed them anything, but cereal in the morning, leftover rice for lunch and one cookie each, yet the entire jar of cookies was nearly empty and she watched Twilight for the entire afternoon with them watching the scary parts. The place was messy and the kids were crying. Hmmm...Wonder what she was doing all day?

About a year ago, I found out from my daughter that their sitter kept them locked in the house all day with tin foil on the windows to block out the sun and that they slept for half the day, but the sitter wanted me to cook all the food for them and package it so she didn't have to work so hard. Another lady stole my kids' toys for her kid and another one thought she was replacing me as their mother and had more rights than me with my kids since she was with them all day (scary!). They were all fired immediately, but because of these crazy people, I am paranoid about people with my kids. I ask my kids questions every day and check them nightly for anything out of the ordinary.

I try to create a loving, relaxing and educational environment. If childcare wasn't so expensive, I would have the ability to put my kids in a much better environment where they would learn something besides how to survive crazy people!

Today I hired someone new that I have been interviewing for the past two weeks and testing her out. I hope I have someone good this time because I can't afford anything more.