Budget.

Sigh. Big, heavy, drawn-out sigh. Sigh.

I have a plan. Total World Domination in 30 hours a week. Good plan, huh? I want to cut my 40 hours a week back to 30 hours a week…. And still afford the little things like food and fuel and toilet bowl cleaner and stuff.

I could say I want my son to go to daycare to develop social skills. He is learning how to interact with other kids. He is learning to take instructions from adults other than his parents. It is good for his immune system to be exposed to all those other little germs. I could tell you a million reasons (besides needing to get paid to buy toilet paper) for putting my son in daycare. Noble reasons. Reasons that justify that “I just left my favorite pony tied to the front door of the glue factor” sinking feeling I have when I leave him. And, for the most part, I believe some of those reasons.

But the reality? I won’t kid you….. I don’t have the patience or strength of character to be a full-time stay-at-home mom. I rely entirely too much on my daycare lady (DCL). She rocks. She tells me how much applesauce makes up a serving of fruit. She knows all the rules about nutrition and child care and discipline and she knows when to bend them. She has ideas and suggestions when I need them. She tells me my child is brilliant and a delight to be around (really, she says that, really….). She doesn’t care if I (or any member of my immediate extended family) drop in unannounced. She reads to Sweet Boy. She pushes him on the swing and takes him for walks and lets him help her feed the chickens. Her house is really clean. The playroom is orderly and the kids practice their “nice manners” while they eat lunch. Her husband is nice. I’ve met her kids and they are intelligent and well-adjusted and that makes me feel good. She feeds Sweet Boy breakfast and lunch and snacks. A lot of the food he eats comes from her garden. She washes his pacifiers in the dishwasher and when he blows out an outfit she washes it for me…. And gets the stains out. All I do is provide diapers and wipes and an occasional bottle of sunscreen.

Oh, but wait…. I’m got off on a little tangent bragging about how great my DCL is…. Sorry. Back to the money whining. (Gosh, that does seem to be a lot of what I blog about… alternating between bragging & whining… interesting.)

So I would like to change my schedule to 3 days in the office per week and a small amount of telecommuting to get my total hours worked to 30. I think, from a work standpoint, it can be done. The tricky part is making it work with our budget. Things are slim around here. I’ve been working on it and playing around with the numbers this week. Of course, the only conclusion I came too was that I need to buy Quicken to manage my money-management. Any brilliant suggestions? Anyone have a money tree growing in their backyard and want to send me a branch? Please don’t suggest I get involved in a pyramid scheme or find a sugar daddy…. Those ideas have already been considered and rejected…. (Although I’m still considering producing children for profit… I come from good stock and make cute babies… I bet I could do pretty well on the black market.)