Childcare and Baby Blues

I have had a worrying few days in relation to the kids and also childcare, which have really made me think about the way I am going about things.

Usually hubby has the kids during the day and as soon as I get home he goes to work. He is self-employed, so mash’Allah books his removal jobs around us. We get to see less of each other during the week than I would like, but this arrangement has meant that our children have always had one of us with them.

Recently though, my husband has been getting more jobs during the day time and being self-employed doesn’t like to turn work down. Usually we find a way round this with my mum helping out. My mother-in-law has also come to stay for the last few summers and taken over child-care during the day and taken care of the school run much to our gratefulness.

This week the kids were recovering from a cold and hubby left the baby for a few hours with a friend and asked her to pick up the kids (her son is in Little Man’s class and we used to pick him up for most of last year, so knew she would not mind). That day the baby caught a nasty cold and has been unwell since. I didn’t think anything of it aside from roll on May when the kids noses finally stop running (it is freeeeezing right now). That was until my neighbour came round with my parcels and said she saw my youngest with a lady walking down the road in the pouring rain. She stopped her car and offered them a lift, but saw they were all soaked to the skin.

I couldn’t really fault the lady who was helping us out, she had to get her kids from school. My neighbour showed real kindness in offering them a lift even though she did not know the lady. However I know my neighbours views on working mothers being greedy and so felt very humiliated when she told me what had happened. More than that I felt so guilty because I felt that that my baby was ill because he was being passed from pillar to post.

I knew then that we had to put proper arrangements into place, at the same time I still could not comprehend putting my youngest into day care or the older two into breakfast club or after-school club. In the end my mum agreed to help out, although there are still issues because of her poor health. My new job also gives me an option, because more money means I can start making noises about going part time at some point which would certainly be nice.

In the meantime, I am relieved it is Friday night, the kids are in bed, hubby is on his way home from a very long, tough day of work and the baby is asleep next to me with the packets of tissues he has been carrying around all day.