It's All Fine and Good Until You Lose Your Childcare

I took Friday off. But then there was this really important call I had to be on. Approximately fifteen minutes before that call, as I was frantically cleaning because my parents were coming, the neighbor walked in. To tell me our other neighbor, who watches both our girls after school, is moving. In a month.

We talked about how we were going to squeeze through the month of May before school gets out and her daughter stays home with her (she's a teacher) and my daughter goes to already-planned summer camp.

"The thing is," I found myself saying, "say for instance she comes home and I have a really important conference call in eleven minutes," and the neighbor was all, "yeah, yeah," and I felt myself fighting tears because all this was happening and my neighbor was in my foyer and my husband and daughter were home and I really, really did have a super important conference call in eleven minutes.

I had to very rudely excuse myself to go upstairs for the conference call. And then I shoved the whole childcare problem to a back corner of my head, where it pops up from time to time like a rubber duck that refuses to stay submerged. It was there, staring at me, when I woke up this morning.

There are options, they just have to be examined. The child isn't going to like any of them that we can afford, that are practical. After a week of spring break, I could barely get her out of bed this morning. I could barely get myself out of bed this morning.

I think I need an entire day of sleeping. That would fix EVERYTHING.