Before I get lots of e-mails calling me a pig, I'm not saying I long for those days at all. I am more than supportive of Mary's PhD program. After all, who wouldn't want a 'Dr. Love' in the family and Lord knows that it won't be me! Moreover, should circumstances have allowed it, I've often thought I'd make a good stay-at-home Dad. Now we were more fortunate than most in that Mary was able to take off an entire semester to be home with Katie after she was born (You have to love the world of higher education!). But while Katie was blessed with such a good start in this world with her momma at her side for so long, Mary and I knew the day would eventually come when she would resume her PhD program and we would be forced to figure out what to do with our little one.
My initial suggestion of leaving Katie out in the yard each day with our dogs Annie and Riley wasn't too well received (it's not like I wasn't going to give her a separate bowl for her food...), so we had to come up with something else. We began looking at daycare options but were leaning toward the idea of having a nanny come into the house. A friend of mine did this for a little over a year after his son was born and Mary and I liked the idea of one-on-one attention for Katie, especially if resources allowed for it. I won't bore you with all the details of the researching and hiring process, but in the end we found a very nice nanny. Her name is Elizabeth. She's been a nanny before and all of her references were glowing. So we extended an offer shortly before Christmas and voila, we had a nanny!
For now, Mary has opted for going back to school part-time. So the nanny will come Monday-Friday for about 4 hours each morning. This, including occasional time on the weekends, will give Mary about 20-25 hours each week to continue working on her PhD program. For those of you following along with where she currently stands, she will be working this semester to finalize her dissertation proposal and hopefully begin the writing process. She's still about 3 years out, but at least for now she's happy to be back in the game. Wish her luck the next time you see her!
We've also begun to talk about our plans for the long-term. At some point, once she gets a little older, we will probably shift Katie over into a daycare program. Our church has a good part-time program and we're also on a wait list for daycare at the University of Texas which is supposed to be good as well. I definitely think it's important for her to socialize with other little munchkins her own age. But for now she's still young and impressionable, so it's probably best to keep her at home until I can explain to her the difference between a Florida Gator and a Texas Longhorn and be sure it has stuck!
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