[CallMeProtart]

Ok, so I thought I’d post this here in case you ‘ideas ladies’ have some thoughts for me.

I work 3 days a week, at a job that I don’t either enjoy or hate, that offers me a lot of flexibility (I come in late, work from home if I need to, etc), and pays well.
The kids go to daycare on these 3 days.
I’ve started a course that has a class at 4pm on one of my work days, and it’s about an hour away from work, so I’d have to leave at 3pm.

I asked my boss if I could leave early on those days and then work from home that evening – but she wasn’t keen. She asked if I could change my workdays to do a full day.

The daycare doesn’t have a spot for DD on any other day. They MIGHT be able to find a spot for DS – but he’s the one who doesn’t really like daycare, so I’d feel pretty bad sending him in without his sister (they play during the day). I wouldn't be that hesitant if they both could go in for that day - it's only for a few months.

I think my options are:
1) Talk to my boss again about what her concerns are about my work, and see if she could come around if I can demonstrate that I really WOULD still do the work. The complications here are that I actually often DON’T have a lot to do in my workday (see EB post count). But when I do – and busy period is coming up soon – she knows full well that I work long hours and from home and out of hours etc, so me being at work wouldn’t really change anything.
2) Pull out all stops to find some care arrangements for an additional day. This would give me time to actually study for half a day, on the day that they are at daycare and I’m not at work (the day I have class). I’d probably need this study time, because of it being busy period at work, so it would be hard to be trying to fit all that study in at night if I’m working all hours as well. If it’s this option, then I think my possibilities are
a. Try to find a nanny for that day. The cost scares me though, and the unfamiliarity.
b. Contact an occasional daycare centre – there is one nearby. But I worry about the kids going to somewhere unfamiliar.
c. Send DS to daycare an additional day, and ask my SIL and her nanny if DD can go to their place on Mondays. She has 3 kids, so they can’t fit 2 extra kids in the car but they can fit one. She’s been there before and has a ball.
d. Dh’s cousin has the same nanny on a different day for half the day. Ask her if there’s any chance she can have the kids there for that half of the day, and then ask the nanny to keep my kids for the other half of the day too.
e. Put forward our planned upgrade of our car to a peoplemover, and see if SIL’s nanny would be willing to take both DD and DS and she could use the peoplemover for the day
f. Ask DH’s parents if they can do it. They used to keep the kids, but MIL has just recently gone into remission from cancer, and the FIL is getting pretty old too. The kids are low maintenance now as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not sure they’d find them so.
g. Ask DH’s parents if they could take DD only – I think they’d love this as they view her as less high maintenance (but I think this is mainly because they have never tried keeping DS). But I’d still feel bad about sending DS to daycare.
h. Try and pull together some kind of ad hoc thing. It’s just 14 weeks to get through – maybe I could ask the cousin just to do this twice, SIL to do twice (still a car issue though), PIL to do twice... maybe I could find enough friends etc who’d be willing to have the kids for one day that I could manage to make up the whole 14 weeks? It would be stressful though asking for so many favours!

What are your thoughts? Am I missing something obvious? My major concerns are partly cost, but more the trying to make that extra day of ‘care’ something fun for the kids that they’d enjoy, not a day of torture for them for their mummy’s selfishness And I also don't want to make it the sort of thing where it's a punishment for DS (daycare) but a treat for DD (day with rellos) as it doesn't seem fair.

Ideas?

[CallMeProtart]

Bump?

[Aribika]

Assuming that you are starting the course straight away, I would work on getting care for the extra work day that you need for the next few weeks by asking family. If this goes fairly smoothly then agree to the different work day and then sort out more concrete plans for the rest of the 14 weeks that you need.

You never know what can change in the next few weeks. Ask about the nanny for sure as she may be eager for extra work.

I know what you mean about asking favours of people because I hate doing it. I even hate asking my Mum to babysit very occasionally. Once you start though, you may find that your family are eager to help you out for the short term.

I would avoid asking my boss again to leave early as she has already said that she is not comfortable with that. That would be my last resort. It sounds like you could do with the extra study day anyway and your chn would be happy to be with family.

Good luck.