Finding a Trusted Caretaker

I’ve alternated between being a stay at home mom and a working mom throughout different stages of my son’s life.  For the first five year of his life I was mostly home, working in a restaurant on the weekend nights so I could be home with him the rest of the week.  Then I was a preschool teacher from his kindergarten year until he was about ten years old.  Those hours were perfect because I would work while he was at school and get out right as he got off the bus, if I had to work while he was off of school he could just come to work with me.  Then I was a stay at home mom for two years before returning to work full time this past October.   Although I absolutely love my job, finding care has been very stressful.  I’ve been pretty lucky so far because my son played on his middle school soccer and then basketball team and would have practices and games after school most of the time HOWEVER the days he didn’t have practice I would almost have a nervous breakdown trying to find someone to get him after school.  Plus he’s decided he doesn’t want o play baseball anymore so I now have zero after school care for him.  He is old enough to stay at home sometimes but I really don’t think he’s ready to be home alone after school for three hours every day.  Plus summer is coming up and I have no idea what I’m going to do with him for 60 hours a week (fulltime job plus commute time).  I have literally been PRAYING for an answer. 

Then I lucked out and came across care.com which is basically a website that brings babysitters and parents together.  There are lists of babysitters and nannies so you can browse and look who you think would be right for you.  The part I loved is that you can see background checks as well as recommendations from other parents.  You can also see pictures, ages, experience, education, and hourly pay as well as a little area where they can tell about themselves.  I liked that because I know the mother of a quiet baby girl would be looking for something totally different than a mom like me who is looking for someone to care for her wild sporty older boy.

A few other benefits include being able to see which days and times each babysitter is available, which extra duties they are willing to offer such as light housekeeping, meal preparation, errands, grocery shopping, travel, crafts, swimming supervision, and carpooling.  They also include if they are trained in first aid, CPR, CRN, Doula, Special Needs Care, and Trustline Certified.

I’m going to be reviewing these profiles to find someone parttime now so that my son will be used to his caregiver by the time summer rolls around and they have to spend more time together.  I may even find someone he likes enough to spend a Friday night with so that I can have a date night!  I’ll let you know how it goes!

If you want to check it out for yourself just enter your zip code above to start searching!

Keep Your Kids Safe

One of the things we worry about the most as parents is keep our kids safe. We see so many instances in the news of the kidnappings and killings of children, of serial molesters and rapists, and of the rampant use of child porn.

Here are some scary facts:

· Over 2,100 children go missing every day, that’s one child every 40 seconds.

· 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 16.

· There are 728,345 registered sex offenders in the United State.

· The re-arrest rate of convicted child molesters is 52%

Now I don’t think we need to live in constant fear because that would not allow our children to develop properly but I do think that we, as parents, need to be aware. One great tool to help with that is to sign up at kidslivesafe.com.

If you sign up you will be able to:

1. Search, map, and view complete sex offender profiles.

2. Receive an instant email alert when a sex offender moves into your monitored area.

3. Safely monitor your children online.

4. Use their Emergency Response Profiles if your child is lost or abducted.

5. Learn your city’s true crime rate.

6. Use their learning center to stay up to date with critical child care information and resources.

Empower yourself to protect your children!

*I am a Kids Live Safe affiliate. 

Valentine's Day Gift Guide

Sometimes it can be so hard to find the perftect gift for that special man in your life.  I came across a great gift guide on Perry Ellis that finds gifts based on your love's personality.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Sweet Sophisticate



Charming Creative




Rugged Romantic



Ladies, does your guy fall into any of these categories? For the men, do any of these best describe you?