And dreams come crashing down...

I really really really need a work-at-home position. We are barely getting by on Hubby's income and all accidentals are currently being credit carded. Hell, last week part of the regular groceries had to be credit carded thanks to the wonderful rising prices.

Its not like we haven't cut expenses - we eat off brands, cheap meat, and canned instead of fresh - but Tadpole has sensitive skin so its the special Pampers diapers ($20 a box) and no off brand detergent. Atleast ALL makes ones that is free of dyes and fragrances without costing the arm and leg that Dreft does, and oh, did you know Dreft still has fragrances in it?

I heard back from AA and they wanted to interview me for an actual position (yay!!) but then she sent me more information on the job today...it would be 2:30 pm to 11 pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Have to be available for all holidays and no holiday pay. Training July 1st - July 24th Monday-Friday @ 2:30pm - 10:30 pm with production starting July 26th. Both production and training also have a 30 minute unpaid break. Training is paid at minimum wage ($6.55/hr) and the cheapest I could find a sitter is $5/hr so lets do that math:

Hubby doesn't work Thursdays and gets home by 9:30 pm. Tadpole is still having problems with the bedtime concept so lets just assume the sitter has to wait for Hubby to get home.

So that's 14 days of a sitter for 7 hours a day = 98 hours at $5/hr = $490

Now without figuring in taxes, I would be working 7.5 hours a day for 18 days = 135 hours at $6.55/hr = $884.25

Hum, $884.25-$490 = $384.25. Did you catch that over half my pay would be going to the sitter? Then there would be taxes to take out and the cost of the phone line and the equipment I need plus the $45 for the background/drug/credit check....I'd be lucky to walk away from training alone with $5 in my pocket.

Lets say I get a raise after training to $9/hr and the sitter stays at $5/hr and look at a typical week:

Sitter would have to be here from 2:30 pm to 9:30 pm 3 days a week and 2:30 pm to 7 pm on Saturdays. That's 7 hrs for 3 days and 4.5 on Saturdays or 25.5 hours a week at $5 an hour = $127.50.

I'd be working 40 hours a week at $9 an hour making $360 before taxes. Once again, the sitter is going to be getting half of my pay before I pay for the phone line that I wouldn't have if I was working at home. Plus 3 nights a week, someone else is getting Tadpole to bed other than Hubby or myself and I'm required to work holidays. Now if I had grown kids, I could see the holidays but I have baby who will be a year old at Christmas and this will be what we will always consider is first Christmas and I'm not missing that. We aren't the point of living in a cardboard box yet so until then we'll just keep trucking along.

Repairs and WAHMing

Tadpole threw any schedule out the window today! He wanted everything early, slept thru lunch and then fought bedtime until about 8 pm. This kid is out to drive me crazy!

I really need to get him onto some kind of schedule for my sanity and my sleep. Currently I'm up until around 3:30 am and waking up depends on Hubby's mood. Some days I sleep until around 11:30 am when he is heading to work other days he wakes me up earlier so he can get some shut eye cause most nights he stays up with me (isn't he sweet!). The days I have to get up earlier, I end up napping with Tadpole. In his pre-cruising days, I was even know to lightly snooze on the couch (to which I would feel extremely guilty about after). I just hoping that this is just the aftermath of having had a newborn and breastfeeding for the first 3ish months and not something more serious or something that is going to require professional help. Surely it can't be that hard to reset my internal clock...

The same repairman that installed our phone line showed up today to do it all over again. I found myself apologizing to him even though I didn't cut the line and wasn't in anyway involved. My lack of involvement is what I guess I was apologizing for but by the time I woke up and registered that they were mowing, the damage had already been done. However, he was a whole day early and I almost hugged the guy!

I'm currently waiting to here back for when my interview will be...I emailed the recruiter that I was back up and running and she responded wanting to interview right then. Your thinking that is great and awesome right? Not. at. all. She emailed back during the period that Tadpole was fighting bedtime and they have a seriously strict, no second chances noise policy. I emailed her as soon as I knew for sure he was out but I'm afraid she's already called it a night.

And here comes Hubby home from work and he wants me off the computer - *sigh, men* :)

Doh...

Note: Translation - this blogger uses "wonderful" in place of ranting, screaming, and saying horrible (but deserved) things. However, if this blogger actually does rant, scream, and say horrible things about someone or something, that means that someone or something was really a sh*thead dumba** jerk that deserves to be taken out back and shot.

Today was destined for failure from the beginning. Hubby doesn't work until noon and so kindly let me sleep in until I woke up in a panic at 11 am (it was a nice thought). Tadpole has refused to be out of arm's reach all day. Yesterday, the "wonderful" mowers cut our phone lines and today I was told the earliest it could be fix was Thursday. This wasn't so bad until I received the email I've been waiting on pins and needles for - a job offer - a freaking work at home job offer! A chance to have 2 incomes again without shelling out millions for daycare. A sparkle of hope that we could really someday be able to afford a real house and move away from this "wonderful" management company. I have dreams about the day I can turn in the keys to our apartment and tell them exactly what I think of them followed by kiss my ass!

Luckily there is something good about today - my loud ranting about the "wonderful" management company did not wake Tadpole! The silly little bugger took a 3rd nap yesterday, was up until 10ish, and then woke up again at around 1 am when Hubby was forging for food in the kitchen. He stayed up until around 3 am and still woke up like clockwork this morning. So the real reason Hubby let me sleep in is that he got with Tadpole, got him feed, played for a few hours and then got him back down for a morning nap so that he could just crawl back into the bed I'd been keeping warm, cuddle, and go back to sleep. I can ignore that he had selfish reasons for keeping me bed :)

Mommy Wars Disclaimer :)

From the outside, the world of mothers looks just like a group of women from every walk of life that are united by little screaming bundles. They can tactfully discuss if they are home birthing, natural birthing, or modern birthing or breastfeeding/bottlefeeding without causing major fights or rifts in the online communities. Then someone will bring up stay at home (or work at home) vs working and the claws come out. There is just something about this discussion that can be the end of friendships, draws the battle lines in groups, and veteran Moms know to keep hush-hush. So why did I bring up such a taboo subject? To give you my blog disclaimer so to speak:

I am a SAHM, however, I do not intend my experiences to persuade or dissuade you from being a SAHM. The purpose of this blog is to voice the side of SAHMing that I think Moms are afraid to admit to themselves or even to each other. I can not tell you if you should be a SAHM, WAHM, or working Mom, I can just share my experiences as a SAHM. I suggest you seek out other Moms of every kind to get a better idea of each option before deciding what is right for you.

And now the fun can begin! :)