Stahlke Adoption

Unexpected Childcare

Jonathan and I both have flexible work hours in our jobs, with set times for a few appointments like classes, meetings, and ensemble rehearsals. We have yet to figure out how parents with inflexible work hours cope with the variable school schedules of their children.

On a regular basis, our children have early morning (7:30 am) band rehearsal and lessons two mornings a week. Two of our children's schools have early release once a week to accomodate faculty meetings. David has after-school tutoring twice a week, which is better than previous years when up to four children received such help. I won't even go into after-school sports practices, games/meets, and tournaments for football, cross-country, volleyball, and basketball.

In the ten weeks since late August, when all the kids finally started school, we've experienced only four "normal" weeks. In the other six weeks, one or more children have had (non-regular) early release or a day off. At least Jonathan and I are now aware of these schedule changes, having survived them now for four years. The first year with the five kids caught us quite off-guard about the Columbus' Day weekend.

Before becoming parents, Columbus Day hardly warranted a thought. With all the controversy about celebrating the "Discoverer of America" who met native Americans here, even the Chicago Tribune didn't choose to give the day much coverage. But our elementary school turned the weekend into a defacto fall break by combining the Monday holiday with parent/teacher conferences on the previous Thursday and Friday. That meant that the holiday weekend stretched from noon on Thursday until the following Tuesday morning.

In those early days with the kids, Jonathan and I had to jointly care for them, and if that wasn't possible, we recruited friends to help. Suddenly, we had to cover a very long weekend with Jonathan working on Thursday, Friday, and Monday. Never mind that I had just started a new church job, and that our kids had been in the U.S. for only six weeks. I think that was the longest weekend of my life. When I saw the last one enter the building on Tuesday morning, all I could think was "Hooray--they're in school!"

"Uh-oh, the school nurse just telephoned. ___ has a fever and must come home."

posted by Stahlkes @ 8:25 PM