Particularly those who have become working moms after you kids went to school.

I knew kids had a ridiculous number of half-days and days off, but it's beginning to feel unmanageable. I imagine it will get more difficult if I return to work full-time. At least part time, it's relatively easy to flex time.

Do you have a nanny? Use after school care at the school (if so, how do they handle half-days and days off)?

I want an Alice.

We use the afterschool program. It automatically covers half days, but you have to sign up and pay extra for full days off. My only gripe is that DS's school is not one of the ones that offers before school care, so I am forced to go into work late on days when I have to get DS off on the bus. Right now, my boss is very understanding, but I can't count on always having that leeway.

the ymca does the pre/after school care at the schools. it covers the 1/2 days, but not the days off. the programs that are offered for the days off suck. i've traded with moms and taken a half day, bringing the girls to work in the morning, etc. it sucks.

holidays aren't so bad, since i also have a lot of them off, but the "in service" days kill me. also, summer camps don't start and end exactly when school starts and ends so my "vacations" end up being when they are off, not when we want to go anywhere.

oh, and you better start looking into summer care now. and start saving your pennies....

My husband went back to work after my oldest started K. We enrolled her in before school care at the school, but they had no opens for after school, so she goes to after school care at a daycare--they come get her in a van and take her to their facility. When it's an off school day we pay $35/day/kid for them to be taken care of there, and they usually plan fun activities. They usually close if all the area schools close for a weather emergency.

Summer care is pretty darn pricey, although they do a lot of fun things like field trips. Both the before school place and the after school place offer "summer camp."

The waiting list for the before and after school program is huge. Like, we should have signed our kid up when she was 2.

We have a school based program. They don't have a waiting list or anything. We only use it about 3 days a week, though.

DD goes to daycare before and after school. We are lucky that daycare will just keep her as usual on the days when there is no school/half days. If I had to take all that time off, I would be screwed.

Dh has his own business and the flexibility to pick dd up after school and we have family in town but there isn't a lot of after-school care and vacation care to be had in town, from what I've seen. After-school doesn't seem to do the days when they have early release.

When we still lived in Austin, her preschool sent a bus and picked her up (like what Lyerin just posted).

I wouldn't imagine there is a waiting list here, but I will look into it. Summer, yikes. I just might ship them off to Camp Grandma.

I do that as often as possible in the summers.

Funky,
call your school, they may offer the after care but you have to request it. That is how our school works. And the more that call and request the more certain they are to have it.

Our Y does after care and day off care. We used the county park system for summer care the last two summers and it was amazing.

Some of the daycares here also offer day off care.

I am lucky to be able to rely on my MIL a lot and I also have a friend or two I can lean on in a pinch.

I am really beginning to get pissed off. They have Friday off this week. Mon and Tuesday next week. Then, three half-days the week after. Add to that, youngest is sick, so dh took off today and I am taking off tomorrow.

HOW DO YOU DO THIS?!

It sucks. Just wait until Christmas break (only partially covered by day out programs) and the first week of summer vacation (not covered at all here).

Well, now, I'm getting the cold shoulder from dh because I can't miss work tomorrow to stay home with a sick kid.

We were always lucky because either dh or I always worked second shift -- and frankly my publishers always were extremely understanding about sick kids. BUT my job also had a bunch of built in flexibility in that as lng as the paper made deadline they really didn't care when I showed up. And as long as kids weren't actively sick (ie we were in the 24 hour fever free period) we could bring the kids to work with us.

It will be very different when I find a new job. However we also have family locally. My dad is now retired, as is one of my aunts and a cousin who I'm pretty sure would help on occassion as well.

As for days off and summer -- our daycare has an afterschool program for kids up to age 12.

he's been going to a home based day care since he was a year old. I drop him off at 6.30 (yes, that early), the bus picks him up and drops him off there.
I pick him up at 5.30.

She is open holidays, breaks, and summers.
Every now and then I'll take him to my mom's but I haven't really had any problems in 6 years.

my son goes to a local day care during the day and i just pick him up on my way home.

We use the school's after school program, which is really affordable. They will keep them till 5:30 on early release days (which I don't understand because I'm in the same district as Pollyanna, and her school doesn't. Weird.) For the random days off, I usually tried to take those days off because I had paid time off and DH didn't. Summer is a huge problem. There is a YMCA camp which is insanely expensive. There are some private camps which are even more insanely expensive, and some community programs which I'm not sure about. For summers for us, it's worked out so that one of us has been out of work (probably not your best option ) or we've been able to alternate hours so that we never see each other, but at least my whole paycheck wasn't going to child care.

FIL is out of work right now so he watches them. Before one of us always worked 2nd or 3rd shift. For the summer they each go to camp and DH takes 2 weeks off and I take one. It sucks and I work to pay for camp during the summer.