Juggling work and children

So far Sue and I have been pretty blessed with regards to our jobs and the impact on Emily.

Today, however, was a different matter. Our firm has recently expanded into a town about 90 minutes away. Today was a day I was to work over there. Best estimate was that I wouldn't get back to pick Em up until about 6.30pm. Then the traffic hit.

Work have been really good about me leaving on time M-W as those are the days I pick Em up. Today was just a bit different, with a late meeting meaning we didn't get on the road until 5.30p, the time I'm usually racing off to get Emily.

Thankfully Sue was able to wing her way out of work to get to Helen's, albeit over an hour later than the usual 6.00pm pick up time.

I'm just really glad we're able to maintain the juggling act of work and child most of the time. If this was the rule, rather than the exception, I'd be a nervous wreck.

New childminder

A new month, a new childminder.

Having had to find a new childminder due to issues out of our control, we finally started with a new woman, Helen, today. While Katharine was a 20 minute round trip the WRONG way, Helen is actually on the way to work. I have to drop Emily at 8.30 in the morning, so we can leave the house around 8.20am. Leaving at 8.05am for Katharine's we used to get there about 8.30am, so Em and I have got a few more minutes at home.

All this means we need to find a new routine!

As it was Em's first day, she wasn't all too impressed with me leaving her. She raised merry hell, as she did when Ness dropped her round last week for a couple of test sessions. She didn't sleep today either, but I'm sure it's all down to the "new ness" of it all.

It's funny starting with a new childminder with Em around 18 months and seeing the differences from when she started at Katharine's. She's quite the little toddler now with moods and attitudes. When we started at Katharine's she was really quite docile and just went with the flow.

Child minding issues. Continued.

With our previous child minder out of action for a bit, we are now currently searching for new services.

Thankfully, we have a stop gap in my aunt, so we can search with a bit more leeway and not take the first child minder that comes along.

We have the first appointment tomorrow around noon with a woman who lives around the corner from us in Wallington. Bonus point here - it's on the WAY to work, not 25 minutes the other way.

I imagine we have a wonderful few weeks of interviews, reference checking and other sundry vetting ahead of us. Oh happy days.

Child minding issues

For reasons I won't be going into we've suddenly found ourselves child minderless. Having processed this information last night, I was trying to find the silver lining to the cloud. The only one really being that Sue and I might be able to source one a little closer / more convenient to my work.

I did a cursory look around NetMums last night and there seems to be a few choices out there. It's just a question of narrowing down, contacting, checking references, etc. Not something we can really do tomorrow and Friday.

Up until this point, I was happy to drive Emily in completely the wrong direction from work as we were completely happy with our child minder and didn't want to uproot Emily from what had become her routine. How fate intervenes.

Today Emily is in emergency childcare at Deutsche Bank and Sue doesn't plan on repeating the trip any time soon, as Emily is getting to the age where her attention span is short and her means of letting you know this quite vocal.

Hopefully we'll have an option surface that will afford us a bit of breathing room. Today I'm feeling all sorts of odd, as I guess it's hitting me that Emily is actually child minderless and we really have no light at the end of the tunnel yet.