The Babysitter Debacle

Have I complained about this yet? I'm so frustrated and upset -- my neck is getting that pinched/tightness that I get when I'm stressed over something.

At the end of the last school year I decided I was going to get a babysitter to pick Alice up from Kindergarten and get Leah off the bus, then watch them until we got home. Easy, right? 

Most importantly, the babysitter would help Leah with her homework -- a task we desperately need help with. Her after-school program was doing nothing to support homework and 3rd grade is the year they start to get "serious." 

Now, we're a day-care family. The girls have been going to a day care center since they were both 14 weeks old, so we're all used to the dependability of having a place to drop them off each day and pick them up by 6pm each night. We all loved it (except for the monthly tuition payments - ugh!). So, this babysitter/nanny set-up is out of my comfort zone. But, they're getting older. It's OK. 

I put an ad up on Care.com at the end of June and received a bunch of interest. Unfortunately, much of the interest was for a summer babysitter. So I had to make it clear to a bunch of gals it was a part-time thing starting in August.

I talked to a few folks, but soon learned I wasn't the only family they were talking to. I got excited about a few. Got close to meeting them. And then, they didn't pan out -- some just never emailed me back. Ugh. 

So I put up a second ad at the end of July. Again a good bunch of applicants. I was more aggressive with getting candidates on the phone. We met with two women who we thought would be good fits. Though, the second one had a kindergartener of her own, and we didn't know how well that would work with flexibility and dependability -- as much as we liked her. Sigh.

I got close to hiring two, but one decided at last minute it was too long of a drive. And the other, a teacher who was looking to make extra income, had too many after-school meetings that would make her anything but dependable. 

Guess what? School started this week and they are both in the day care program after school. And I'm stressed and frustrated that I couldn't make this work out the way I wanted.

Working Mommy Fail. Grrr. 

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