givemetheusual

Nanny vs. nanny share vs. daycare vs. try to work from home with a crying baby? Unofficial stats based on 4 months of searching for daycares and nannies via Berkeley Parent Network, Care.com, Bananas, and an agency. Daycare I've looked at some contracts for in-home daycares in the area and had informational interviews with some. My neighbor, who runs an in-home daycare for older kids, said the California state licensing agency has advised daycares to update their contracts to include phrases about sending kids home if they seem lethargic or have a runny nose or cough. This is an update, from what I understand, to the previous policy of sending them home only in case of fever, diarrhea, or vomiting.  There is also an expected 2 week quarantine period if you travel out of state and three days quarantine after the disappearance of cold or flu symptoms in your child. If you're working full-time at an average M-F, 9-5 job and travel an average amount, you'd be able to send your

Recently a few challenges have pressed me to ponder what I value. We had a baby while living in a pandemic, far away from family, and my husband has a busy CEO job. I found out some painful news about my job on the day my maternity leave ended: my coworkers were having a much harder time than I realized working with me since I'm married to the CEO. It was excruciating to learn that my job wasn't working for me or my coworkers, and I decided to move on. I liked my job, and liked working with my husband. We've both been sad about this new development. I've now spent 2 months simultaneously looking for a job and looking for childcare since we kept having childcare options fall through (partially because we're newbies at looking for it, partially because that's just how it is). I started having almost daily meltdowns of crying after any job interview or childcare interview, felt incredibly dizzy and nauseous in the evenings, and couldn't fall asleep for naps or

For some reason, deciding to have a baby, being pregnant, and now facing birth happening anytime between now and the end of August keeps making me think of the fragility of life and how close we are to death at any moment. At first this seemed paradoxical to me; why would birth make me think of death? However, they are connected in many ways. Imagining myself going through the phases of parenthood makes it easier to imagine myself aging. I obviously would have aged even without having a child, yet I'm familiar with the rites of passage of childhood and how old parents typically are when their child graduates from high school, for example. The predictability of children's lives up until they are 18 or maybe even through college makes it easier to imagine the passage of time. It is strange to imagine myself being at their high school graduation with grey hair! Also, the process of giving birth involves so much of the fluids of life - blood, tears, sweat - which also empha

Broken relationships  So this might be an unusual Valentine's Day post. A couple years ago, I finished going through a year of intense group and individual therapy class and learned that I had been loving people who I shouldn't love. That's right: there are people you *shouldn't* love. This concept flew in the face of everything I stood for. Didn't every spiritual leader and book of scripture tell us to love everyone and forgive everyone, even our enemies? Well, yes, and guess who's included in "love everyone." ME and YOU. I have to love myself as much as I love others. You have to love yourself as much as you love others, and invite people and things into your life that improve your quality of life (in the areas you value). If they are doing that too, then you'll end up in relationships that help both people live their values. So what do you value? That's the core question to answer. Because if someone repeatedly makes i

Recently, a few memories have reminded me of how awkward pre-teens can be. Perhaps it's the surge of hormones that drives girls to try to kiss cute boys despite the obstacles of braces and headgear, or it's the Red 40 dye in Swedish Fish that leads young, sweaty boys with the promising starts of BO, facial hair and acne to feel as confident as Joseph Gordon-Levitt. We may never know, but here are a few memories to jog your own. Either these will make you feel better about your level of awkwardness, or you'll find that I'm another friend with whom you can commiserate. The Halloween Costume In Fifth Grade, crushes at school started to take on just the faint aroma of real attraction. It wasn't like I even knew the words to describe this, but I was aware that some girls just had what it took to get the boys really obsessed with them. We were all starting to wear training bras and put on lipgloss and there was an extra layer of heady anticipation before Halloween t

My story About four years ago, during a summer of intense stress, I found myself staring at a bowl full of yellow turmeric powder at 3 am. I was about to pour water into the powder, mix it into a paste, and spread it all over my hands and legs. It all started out with getting eczema on the backs of my hands and the backs of my legs. The eczema began as annoying and quickly became unbearably itchy, to the point of keeping me up into the wee hours of the morning. The patches of itchy skin became inflamed and infected, eventually, like little maniacal monsters intent on driving me to the edge of insanity. Which is where I found myself at 3 am this one night. This bright yellow turmeric paste was a last resort as an eczema treatment because although it works really, really well, it also permanently stains anything it touches. Skin, clothing, bed sheets, carpet. You name it, it's yellow. If you have ever stained your clothes with yellow Indian curry, it's because the food conta