Wow, oh, wow. The last week has brought about some big changes.

For starters, I had a job interview for a part-time therapist position at a community mental health agency about 20 minutes away. The job would be 3 days per week, allow me to work on my licensing hours, and keep me fresh in the counseling field. I'd be working with adults with severe and persistent mental health issues, meaning they have multiple diagnoses, and most of them are personality disorders and mood disorders. This is very similar to what I did for most of my internship experiences, only I worked with adolescents instead of adults. This is an all day therapeutic rehabilitation program, so we'd be doing individual and group therapy, as well as arts & crafts time, life skills development, and milieu management.

I'm not sure if I'll be offered the job or not, but because I have a few other options lined up, I decided it was time to start looking for childcare "just in case". I prayed about it and while I am happy to be a stay at home mama, I am ready to use part of my time in my other passion... no not eating chocolate and taking long showers... but helping others.

Insert Random Cutie Picture of Everly
at Lunch Today

So.

The first thing I wanted to decide was whether I should use a nanny or daycare. Here are some basic pros/cons I came up with:

Nanny Pros
-More individualized attention
-Could watch at our house
-Becomes a part of the family
-Can take Everly places (like playgroup meetups)

Nanny Cons
-May be uninterested in part-time work
-Little exposure to other people/babies
-Less state regulation
-Less accountability

Daycare Pros
-More regulation by the state
-Exposure to more people and babies
-Curriculum that must be followed
-Can be used until the child is ready for school
-Accountability for staff/facility

Daycare Cons
-Will be sick more often
-Expensive
-Less individualized attention

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I felt like I was leaning toward using both. A daycare for 2 days per week, and a nanny for 1 day per week. But how could I find a daycare that took part-time babies?

That's where references came in. I posted on Facebook, emailed other mamas I knew, and posted a message on my mom playgroup message board, which is where I got a referral to the daycare we discovered today. We'll call it Happy Place, because I don't trust you all... kidnappers.

So anyway!

This place received really great reviews online and with moms I knew. It was also the most expensive I had heard of in town, so I figured it had to be different in some way for them to be able to charge what they were (even for just 2 days).

Billy and I walked in and both looked disheveled. It had been raining, I was wearing flip-flops even though it's like 50 degrees today, and Billy didn't wear his wedding ring because he forgot it. If you've ever seen us, you understand the significance of this... we look like teenagers, it's just the truth... so when we look disheveled, we look irresponsible and kind of... ridiculous. So that was fun since this kind of looked like... well... a rich people place, to be honest. And I mean that as a compliment... but I gotta keep it real. B and I are both from rural communities, so daycares are just... different in my head... like babies are running around with diapers on their heads and knocking stuff over and falling into the dirty floor in a puddle of tears.

Drama is my middle name.

Happy Place was impressive. I was looking for clean, bright, non-cluttered, and a friendly staff. I found all of the above, as well as the fact that it's God-centered, there are webcams so you can check in on your baby all day long, it is roomy but cozy, and it just gave me that.... positive gut feeling, I guess you could say. And it's not easy to give me a positive gut feeling when I'm hungry and nauseated!

I'm one of those people who bases decisions on intuition and feeling (ENFP, anyone?) and I felt really good about Happy Place. I'm almost ready to make the commitment, but I am checking out some nannies. Using a nanny just one day per week instead of the daycare would save us $40-50 a month. Plus the nanny I'm looking into has kids, takes them to playgroups regularly, and has some great references from what I've seen. She is also the organizer of our playgroup & has been for a while - and our playgroup has over 100 members. So she's got her stuff together.

While it's not easy mentally or emotionally thinking about childcare for your baby that you've been at home with the last 9 months, it's also not easy being someone that enjoys their profession and putting it on hold forever and always missing it. I think striking a balance was important to me. I'll still be home with Everly more often than not, I've given her a great foundation for attachment, and I'll be prepared to go into full-time work when Everly & the new baby are old enough for school.

It's a perfect set-up. Now to see if it's a perfect execution.