I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was meeting with a friend to discuss nanny sharing. Well, it's official - we've hired a nanny to take care of Simon.
Because of all of Simon's health issues when he was first born, we can no longer put him in daycare this year. Kids in daycare get all kinds of colds, just because they're exposed to so many other kids all day long, putting their mouths on toys that some other kid just had in his/her mouth, etc. And for Simon, even a simple cold would be really rough on him. His lungs are now healthy enough for him to breathe well without any extra oxygen. But a respiratory infection would be very difficult.
So when Simon came home from the hospital, we started trying to figure out what on earth to do. Would one of us stop working? Would we both try to shift our schedules such that one of us could be home in the morning, and one in the afternoon? Could one of us work weekends? Thankfully the solution allows us to both continue in our jobs.
I have a wonderful friend here in the Boston area, whom I've known since we were 11 years old. We were best buddies in the 6th and 7th grades back in Minnesota, but then she and her family moved away. Long story short, we fell in and out of touch over the years, until she found me on Facebook earlier this year. It turned out we were both in Boston, and both expecting little boys! We had such fun catching up, sharing pregnancy stories, doing prenatal yoga classes together, etc. Her son is just 3 weeks older than Simon, and is absolutely adorable!
We'd briefly discussed nanny-sharing before the boys were born, but both decided on daycare. We were even going to use the same daycare center. But after all of Simon's health issues, we decided to look in to it again. It wasn't going to be THAT much more expensive than daycare, and my friend decided she'd also prefer a nanny to daycare this year, given what is expected to be a pretty awful flu season.
So we started interviewing nanny candidates. With four of us involved (us and our spouses), it wasn't terribly straightforward, with all of us having different opinions about one person or another. Then there was the tax issue - we found a candidate that we liked, who said she was willing to pay taxes instead of being paid under the table. (This is very important to us - I know lots of people pay their nannies off the books, but we're going to do this legally.) But then when we were getting ready to sign a contract, she backed out on it, saying she preferred to be paid cash. Gah.
But finally we found someone. We really like her and hope it all works out. She is a mom herself, and has nanny experience with triplets, so I'm sure she'll be able to handle two boys about the same age. We're going to alternate homes - one month at our house, and one month at my friend's house. The nanny will start next week - for the first week we'll just have two half-days with both of us mommies, the nanny and the boys all together, one day at our house and one at theirs. Then the nanny start full time the following week, when I go back to work.
Part of me is dreading going back to work. I know I will be a mess and will miss Simon all day. But... and I feel guilty saying this... part of me is looking forward to it. My brain kind of feels like mush, and it will be nice to stretch it out and have some intellectual stimulation again. I've enjoyed every minute of these weeks home with Simon, but balance is good. I guess every working mother must go through this internal debate. Fortunately all of the people I work closely with have young kids, and they know what it's like. The job is also reasonably flexible, so if I'm having a bad day and want to come home early, I can do that, as long as I log on after Simon goes to bed to finish things up. So hopefully things will work out.
Speaking of Simon going to bed... he's slept from 8:30 p.m. - 4:30 a.m. two nights in a row. Fingers crossed that this pattern will stick around!
