I’m struggling this year… when we had our kid my wife wanted to stay home with her and since we could financially afford it we made it work.

Now she’s in kindergarten and my wife has gone back to work. But with kindergarten comes PD days, a mountain of sick days and, soon, spontaneous snow storms.

I’ve always been able to iron man my way through small business, one sick day in 6 years, and for vacation and time off I can plan for that.

But I’m having a hard time with the chaos and unpredictability of kindergarten lifestyle. Anyone been through it? Anyone able to cope better?

  • Significant-Repair42@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    What seems to be missing from your post, is networking with other parents in the class to crowdsource some of the pick up and dropping off at school, days off etc. (Not that I’m suggesting that you send a sick kid to someone else’s house, of course.)

    I’m surprised that you aren’t mentioning the housework as well. A weekly housekeeper to tidy up would probably also cut down on the chaos.

    • datawazo@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      We have biweekly house keeping, added that this September. A big one is suppers though. My wife is off a bit earlier so still does the bulk of the cooking but I need to/want to get in the habit of doing more of it. Issue is being prepared to get home early ect.

      • ScarlettWilkes@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        A meal service like blue apron, sun basket, green chef, etc. can help a lot by cutting out the need for a lot of shopping. If you have the budget for it, you can probably also find a local personal chef. We had one for a while that came to our house on a set schedule (once a month in our case) and made/froze a TON of meals for us. She did the cooking in our personal kitchen, so she didn’t need a commercial kitchen and everything that goes along with that. We would agree on a menu, she’d shop for everything and cook and portion it all out. It wasn’t nearly as expensive as I thought it would be.

      • Significant-Repair42@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        We do larger meals in a slow cooker, like chili or pulled Mexican chicken once a week. That way we have the base of a meal already completed that lasts for a couple or three meals. A slow cooker and a rice cooker are such time savers. :)

        It saves so much time. :)