I gave notice this week

[flutterbee]

difficult child has not been doing well at all. Raging and melting down several times a day and at the drop of a hat.

I'm always so optimistic that things are going to get better for difficult child sooner than they have been. When, in fact, they are getting worse. I finally realized Sunday that I couldn't do both working and taking care of difficult child. When I'm at work I'm worried about home, and when I'm home with difficult child I'm worried about work. I was out all of last week and 3 days this week with difficult child. I was so stressed that every muscle in my body was tensed to the point that my teeth were chattering and every part of my body hurt. My doctor finally called in a muscle relaxer for me.

It's not fair to difficult child, it's not fair to easy child, it's not fair to my co-workers, it's not fair to my clients, and it's not fair to me to be pulled in so many directions. difficult child requires so much from me right now and I need to be able to focus on my family. So on Thursday I gave notice at work. My last day is April 30. I plan on doing in-home daycare to make ends meet. easy child hates the idea, but I don't seem to be able to do anything lately to make him happy anyway. I hope that when we get settled into our new routine, his opinion will change. difficult child, on the other hand, absolutely loves the idea. Although, she now really, really wants to be homeschooled so she can "help me" (her words) take care of the short ones. :faint:

I'm absolutely terrified. I won't have a reliable paycheck. What if I can't make ends meet? What if I'm just trading one problem for another? What if I just create more problems? But, I'm also excited. I love little ones. I really think I will enjoy myself and I know it will give difficult child peace of mind to know I'm home during the day, even though she'll be at school.

I also know that they really like me at work, so if things change and they have a position they will rehire me. My boss said he was sorry to lose me and asked me if there was any other work I could do that wasn't so deadline driven so it wouldn't matter if I was out (there really isn't enough of that to keep me busy). He also said if things change between now and April 30 to let him know.

Ladies, please keep your fingers crossed for me...rattle beads...think good thoughts.

 

[timer lady]

Heather,

I'm sorry to hear that difficult children level of need has brought you to make this type of decision. Have been there done that - I just recently lost my job because of the time I lost due to the extreme needs of my family.

You're right, it's not fair. In fact, it bites. Many times, life isn't fair. We just do what needs to be done.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you, your family that the daycare business works out for you.

 

[neednewtechnique]

I am a working mother, and for all purposes, must remain that way for at least another few months. Our difficult child has not been living with us long, and since she was technically placed in our home by CPS, as a "foster child" for the first 6 months, she is my husband's bio daughter. He has never had custody of her, and when CPS removed her from her mother's home, they required us to go through training and evaluations as any other foster parent would before being approved to care for children, and once all was complete, they set this up as a permanent placement, but she is considered a foster child in our care for the first 6 months. At that point, they will have a judge enter an order to give my husband full custody of her. So in effect, it is almost like they are asking him to adopt his own child from "the system" which is rather irritating in itself. Through this whole experience, we have also discovered another "KINK" in the system, that is also rather irritating. His child support order, which was in effect while the child was living with her mother, does not get cancelled until he has full custody, so although we are providing full support for her as a "foster child" without the compensation that normal foster care providers receive, we are STILL PAYING 500 per month in child support for her!!!

We may consider doing the very thing that you are doing once we have the financial stablility to do so. I believe you are making a wise choice. However, some things for you to consider...

(and forgive me for rambling and for such long posts, but I am so excited the last few days that I found this forum and have just had SOOO much to say!!!!!!)

ANYTIME I end up staying home for issues unrelated to our difficult child, for example, one of my easy child's is sick, or I have a migraine, or am sick myself, our difficult child finds SOME excuse to decide she doesn't want to go to school. On most occasions, I make her go anyway, but this usually causes a HUGE fight and she lashes out and makes me feel bad telling me that I am neglecting her needs by sending her to school when she is "so sick" or with "such a headache"... the last time, she even went to the extent of making herself throw up TWICE in the morning so that I could see she was "really sick".

Again,I think that overall you are probably making the right decision if you can swing it, to stay home, and hopefully the daycare situation will work out well.

But just be prepared, the issue may come up that your difficult child will make DESPERATE attempts to stay home with you, and I suspect that this may become a problem, since your difficult child has already expressed an interest in doing exactly that. I don't know if you are actually considering the possibility of homeschooling, but if you are, here are a few other things to consider....

Helping out with the little ones is a very nice offer, but the problem is, even if you did homeschool her, number one, how much of a fight would it be to get through her schooling on a regular consistent basis, and number two, being at home with other people's little ones, your attention will mostly be directed at other children, and I worry about how your difficult child would deal with that.

 

[flutterbee]

You bring up some good points, CJ.

I have homeschooled difficult child in the past and it was a battle. I'm not at all interested in doing that again. Besides, I really think it's in her best interest to actually go to school rather than hide at home. However, I know it's going to be a battle and I'm preparing for them.

And don't apologize for your posts! You are very insightful and I appreciate your thoughts. I completely understand where you are coming from. You finally find others that can relate to your situation and it's like a dam has been opened.

Who is getting the child support that your husband is paying? Don't tell me it's bio-mom....that would be terrible.

 

[neednewtechnique]

No, and this is actually a really interesting and somewhat "magical" occurance that has baffled me since all of this started. The bio mom was receiving until she was imprisoned, at which time it was automatically re-routed to the Illinois Foster Care association. It was paid to them through the evaluation period we went through to get them to place her with us (at which time she was in an appoved foster care home, which just caused more problems, but that is a story for a different time). We were aware of the fact beforehand, that his child support order would not be cancelled until we get full custody at the end of the six months she lives with us as a "foster child", so we were trying to find a way around it. We were under the impression that CPS was the one responsible for having his child support re-routed the first time, so we asked about the possibility of just having it re-routed back to us until they could get it cancelled. Apparently, the first re-routing was done by the child support fairy, because according to them, they have no involvment with that whatsoever, and although it was done, no one knows who actually did it. So when she was finally placed with us, there was a "hold" put on his child support account. Which means that he still has the money deducted from his paycheck, but it isn't being paid to ANYONE right now. It is being stored in an account, and at the end of the six months when custody is turned over to us and the order is cancelled, we will get all that back. Which, don't misunderstand, is a GREAT thing, but at the same time, that doesn't really help us now, with having to still pay the child support AND fully support her on our own (mom's out of prison now, in my opinion, much too quickly for a repeat offender, but we have no control over that... and there is no child support order in place for her until this six months is up).

And yes, it is exactly as you said, having people around to relate to IS like a dam being opened up and everything is pouring out at once!!!!!!

 

[flutterbee]

Don't you just *love* bureaucracy?

 

[neednewtechnique]

Definitely, it is one of the worlds greatest FLAWS sometimes........

I've got a little something for them.....

:bravo:

:faint:

 

[kris]

<span style='font-family: Georgia'> <span style='font-size: 17pt'> <span style="color: #993399"> heather, i know this wasn't an easy decision for you.

i do have a question. why specifically were you loosing so much time from work? doctor appts, fetching her from school?? will those things change when you have a houseful of littles in the house? how will you manage taking care of these things with-littles? parents aren't going to want you carting their kids around.....and you'll need special car ins to do that. is this really feasible if the answers to these questions about fetching/doctor appts is yes?

don't mean to be the fly in your ointment, just want to make sure you've thought of these things.

kris </span> </span> </span>

 

[flutterbee]

kris,

I appreciate the thoughts. I've been missing so much work because of difficult child's panic and subsequent meltdowns.

I don't know how this is going to work out. One of the reasons I'm so terrified. But I have to try. I can't do both anymore - working and taking care of difficult child. And I have to have some kind of income.

I will be certified with the county to provide childcare and I have 2 friends who are county certified and can act as backups if I have appointments. It's not going to be easy, but like I said, I have to try.

 

[kris]

<span style='font-family: Georgia'> <span style='font-size: 14pt'> <span style="color: #993399"> sounds like you've got your bases covered.

i really hope this works out for you.

kris </span> </span> </span>

 

[dreamer]

Last nite at home, when I could not post or reply (my WebTV no longer functions interactively with the site) I had the same questions/concerns as kris.
Wishing you well, hope it all works out.
Do check into your community laws, the town next to me just recently shut down an in home day care becuz neighbors complained about the noise and traffic.
My neighbor has been doing in home day care next door to me for 20 years, (the whole time we lived here) and if I were a complainer, it could have caused her great problems. (I worked 2nd and 3rd shift and her "playground and drive way are directly under my bedroom window, not 5 feet from my house)

 

[mightymouse]

Heather, I too have the same concerns as Kris. My concerns are from first hand experience.

I have a friend who has had a home daycare for 4 years and she has had many struggles throughout. When she first opened, she kept her ratio down to the number that one adult could care for. Her husband was also certified and worked 2nd shift at his job so he was her backup most of the day for either the daycare or for their own 3 children if they were ill, had an appointment, or a parent was needed (or wanted for say a lunch date) at school.

Her husband then changed his hours to 1st shift which worked much better for their family, but not for the daycare. So she hired a full time assistant and kept a few more kids. If she or her assistant had an appointment or was sick, they had to find another person to help with the daycare in order to be within the DHS ratio. That's where I came in. She would call me, usually on very short notice to come over and I usually could do it.

Then about 1 1/2 months ago, she had to fire her assistant. I cannot help her full time because of my back problem, although I would love to, and the time I do help really causes me a lot of pain. In the last six weeks she has hired two assistants, one of whom was a friend, and they both flaked on her. She finally cut down the number of kids to where she just needs someone two afternoons a week and to pick up a pre-k child at school at 10:30 everyday. I told her I could do this but we have both been completely stressing out for the last few weeks because of schedule conflicts. Between the two of us our kids have soccer practice M-Th so one or both has to leave early. One of her children fell and broke her arm so she has had dr. appts. My children have had a well child check up, bladder infection, severe allergic reaction to antibiotic, upper respiratory infection x2, double ear infections, and a stomach virus all involving dr visits in the last 4 weeks. She goes to school at night but has 2 hours of evaluations to do every week during daycare hours to complete her degree. I completely forgot about and missed easy child child's appointment for evaluation beause I was too worried about our daycare schedules. I also forgot about difficult child's first evaluation appointment until they called to remind me the night before. I already had to reschedule this appointment because someone was sick on the original day and by the time I got the message it was too late to reschedule this one without being charged $50. Luckily one of the daycare kids had gone home with a fever the day before so he couldn't come back until he went 24 hours fever free. Oh and I forgot to mention that she had the stomach virus and had to completely shut down the daycare with no notice to parents which really ticked some of them off. I also have had the stomach virus 2 times and the upper respiratory infection. The last time I had the stomach thing, I absolutely had to go to the daycare after having diarrhea 12 times in one hour, otherwise a little girl would have been stranded at school. The daycare owner went to pick her up while I literally laid on her couch and did nothing if I wasn't in the bathroom. Thank God she has a great group of kids and she did take a few with her on the school run and nothing happened while I was in the bathroom and the kids were unsupervised. After I vomitted twice and had diarrhea countless times she told me to just go home. She had no other backup to call so she was over ratio and worried to death that DHS would show up to inspect and would shut her down, but she had no other option.

Sorry to ramble and give too much information for some, but I wanted to give you a good idea of the problems we face with a home daycare. The owner actually remarked the other day, "My career is not very flexible," and then went on to talk about how she quit her job and opened up the daycare so that she could be there when her kids needed her but she just can't be there for them a lot of the time and actually spends much less quality time with them now. She is actually looking into going back to her old job.

I too don't want to be the fly in your ointment, I just want to be realistic. One thing I would really ask myself is how reliable is your backup? They may seem very willing to help you now, but if your difficult child goes into crisis mode when she knows you are at home and you are needed several times a week at the school, will they still be so willing? Once you have called them several times on short notice to come over, will they quickly tire of it? I know a lot of stay at home moms but don't know of any that are willing to be at someone's beck and call every day.

You are in a very difficult situation and unfortunatly, I don't have any answers for you. I just hope you give consideration to all aspects of having a home daycare before you take the plunge. I too am single and I know I struggled with managing time at my deadline oriented job and caring for only one easy child. Add my difficult child to the mix and I don't know what I would have done. Sometimes I think God actually gave me my back problem so that I would have no choice but to be at home with my difficult child. Financially I am ruined, but at least I am there for him.

 

[Wiped Out]

Heather,

I am keeping a good thought this works out for you. You sound like you have a good plan in place. :angel:

 

[On_Call]

Heather,

I am adding my hopes for a smooth transition, as well. I hope that this decision works out for you.

I've also been in those positions where I have actually missed more hours per week than I have actually been at my desk where I was 'supposed' to be. It is so stressful. Not having that extra anxiety of worrying about work when you are with difficult child will be good.

I, too, had the same questions as kris when reading your original post. We have the perfect house set-up to do daycare, and I thought about it at one time, too, but I really thought about what I would do if I had a house full of other people's children and our difficult child had a huge meltdown. I have a hard enough time putting a crisis plan into place for easy child - let alone little ones belonging to other people. I cannot think of a single person I could get as an assistant. It sounds like you have a good plan in place to cover that issue, though.

Good luck. I hope this is the solution you are looking for! :wink:

 

[sameold sameold]

Good luck, I too had to do this when difficult child was 9, luckily husband had a decent job, it still hurt loosing my income, but we got by, I just started working full time again this past December, when difficult child went into a supported living home. It has been a long haul. But looking back on it, there was nothing different I could have done. I will keep you and your family in my thoughts.

 

[Janna]

Heather,

I left my job too for a while back in November of 2005. I tried doing a couple of things too (housecleaning, no way I wanted to babysit LOL), and they just didn't "do it" for me.

It sounds like you have a good plan in place, I hope it works for you. Keeping fingers crossed.

Janna