I’ve used the same woman for over two years now, and I love her.  What’s neat is that she only watches one other kid, who is the same age as my two year-old.  And what’s more, she allows me to forego payment on all of my school breaks and long summer vacations.  She didn’t demand I bring his own toys and dishes, or his own baby bedding.  She would have even dealt with cloth diaper if I’d wanted to do that instead of disposable.

 Trouble is, she has to miss work a lot.  She has six school-age boys, and naturally they get sick or hurt or have sports quite often.  When they get sick, she often gets sick, too, and then my son gets sick and I end up missing a lot of work.  In addition, she only works until 4 o’clock, which is a rather inconvenient time to pick him up by.

She charges $175 a week.  Doesn’t that seem high?  I thought it was so high that I even looked into a pre-school, but that was even more outrageous!  I mean, if she was holding a kind of pre-school of sorts:  maybe with an approved curriculum or a regular schedule of activities and exposures to the world.  I’d understand that.  But it’s pretty much like a mom who babysits; and I’m wondering, am I paying too much?

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