Truck

The more I try to plan for the next phase of childcare for Nora & Milo, the more I appreciate the twin whisperer. One thing I never thought to appreciate before now is that she has legally established her own business, and pays her own taxes, so we've never had to deal with the taxes issue because she is not our employee. Now that I am thinking about other nannies and trying to calculate the taxes we'd have to pay, holy cow it drives up the price. Not just in terms of the taxes we pay on our end, but also that we would need to bump up our hourly rate quite a bit so that the nanny's take-home pay would be reasonable after taxes.  Now I appreciate just how much of a bargain the twin whisperer is, as I'd never really thought hard about how her take-home pay is quite a bit less than what we pay for the hourly rate.

Today we met with a very nice young lady who is looking for a part-time position in the fall. She is currently working with a family and the mother of that family loves her and gave her a great reference. When Jake and I met her, we thought she was nice, but I think we were both thinking "she's no twin whisperer." I can't even exactly explain the difference. Can I really fault her for not being a 60-year old retired pediatric nurse with oodles of experience? 

We'd have to pay a fair amount more than we're currently paying for this woman's services, even though in the end her take-home pay wouldn't be all that terrific. This issue of the taxes makes the daycare option seem pretty appealing.  For less money I could put them both in university daycare 3 days a week.  (Sadly there are no openings at the moment, even though I've been on the waiting list, let's see, it'll be 2 years in May).  I kind of like the idea of something like the university daycare, staffed with early childhood specialists, for the learning opportunities they would incur there. The downside is that it is inconvenient to have to take the kids somewhere for childcare, and it would interfere with my carless commute lifestyle, and the kid:caregiver ratio would be way higher than 2:1. 

Oh, and the fact that Nora would freak.  But by the time September rolls around, she might be cool with it. She'll be a lot older by then.

It's so hard to figure out what to do.  I know that tons of other people put their kids in daycare or in-home care and it's fine, and it works out great, and the kids adore their providers, so I don't know why I'm having such a hard time working this out.  I know it'll work out in the end. We'll find something that will be a good solution for all of us, even if it means paying an arm and a leg in state and federal taxes.

Both kids are saying two-word phrases now. They say "bye bye truck, bye bye kitty, bye bye dad", and sometimes "hi dad" or "hi kitty". Nora says "bye bye" any time she drops anything. Bye bye hat, bye bye block, bye bye cracker.  The kids are all over the concept of "truck" these days and anytime there is a low rumbling outside, they'll say "truck!" and run over to the window. Milo also says "tweet tweet" when he hears the birds chirping. On Thursday I came home and Milo had a bruise on his forehead. I said "how did you get that?" and he said "truck."