Daycare, again, food, and a new challenge for me

So excited to find out that I have readers both in NYC and elsewhere who were willing to comment on my daycare dilemma. So here are my responses, and the progress we've made.

Anonymous, I presume you are not in NYC. I would love to just send the fusspot to a good Montessori daycare (mind you daycare, she's too young for preschools of which there are far more). I would love it so much that I forked over $30 to apply, even though I knew there would be more than 500 applicants for the 30 or so spots. And we tried. Except this happened at our local Montessori preschool (in fact, in a post titled "Why we need to leave NYC"). And the four other reasonable daycares in the neighborhood wouldn't even consider her because they couldn't interview her on their schedule, seeing as we live abroad and all. While NYC mothers get an accurate representation as obsessive, some of it is well-deserved. There has been a huge baby boom in the city and given the very strict regulations on fire escapes, sinks, bathrooms, etc. there are very few apartments which can be made into daycares, and thus exceedingly few spots open. I would guess that a ratio of 500 applicants per 30 spots goes for all of the places in our neighborhood. There is the daycare in the 'bad neighborhood' nearby but I am increasingly hesitant to send the fusspot into a tiny one-room facility with 14 other kids, an elevator which breaks frequently making it impossible for them to even go out on a walk, and a TV which is turned on, despite the lovely staff. So yes, I'd love to send her to a Montessori daycare, no, it's not going to happen.

And then my new NYC reader (hi Malea!) suggests we ought to pay our nanny off the books to be fair to them. First off, my opposition to this is by no means philosophical or theoretical or even political (even anything, being left of left of left we're all for making it easier for immigrants, especially since I am a first generation American, JD emigrated, and my MIL actually worked as an illegal nanny on the UES before her papers came through), it's just that within the next five years one or both of us could very easily land up in a job interview where an early and legit question would be "Have you knowingly broken any laws?" and I just don't want to put us in a position where we can't answer that question. I don't talk about JD's work, but you might imagine him doing something like enforcing immigration law, which is why this matters so much. So as to the pay, when I said pay 'generously' I should have clarified that we will advertise a base pay, tell people they have to be legal, and then take on fully the extra costs associated with taxes, workers comp, etc. So if we advertise $10 an hour, we are well aware that we will be paying $15 an hour. I do realize we can't offer nearly enough for a good quality of life, but the woman who we initially hired and then backed out is making under $9000 a year and thus qualifying for medicaid. I really doubt that her standard of living would be lower if she took a job where she'd make $25,000 a year. And Rachel, in NYC a single adult needs to make under $9000 to qualify for Medicaid, so I'm sure your acquaintance qualified because of her dependents.

Carrie suggested we find other activities to help the fusspot learn Chinese, but go with a local nanny share (which is what we did last year 2 days a week). Here's the problem: I really think that she needs at least 30 hours a week exposure to Chinese in order to get the intonations correct and become fluent. Even basic language classes don't start until age 3 or 4, and I think that's awfully late for this language (and believe me, I have suffered through enough language classes that I can say with confidence that some languages are easier than others. Honestly folks, I've passed at least the first year in eight languages along my long educational path ...).

But Kate and Jenn's comments both got me thinking about priorities, and the truth is that I'd also really like for the fusspot to be bilingual. And if JD really wasn't going to push Chinese, then I'd probably try to put her in a Hebrew-language daycare (of which there are several, they just have crazy politics). So yes, this is his priority, but I'm going to need to do more than passively support it in order for it to happen. And also, despite our best liberal intentions, we have very much fallen into the (hopefully very temporary) trap that JD brings in the bulk of our income but he has to work really long hours to do so, and thus I am the one who takes responsibility for daily household stuff and staying home with the fusspot is sick, etc. So here's what I did: I e-mailed JD and told him he needs to:
1. Figure out his priorities on this language thing and how much he cares
2. Figure out how much he's willing to pay for childcare (not how much we can, how much he's actually comfortable doing)
3. Realize that I can't find a Chinese-speaking home daycare/nanny so he needs to do it, and he needs to get it done by the time we get home
and just for good fun, I reminded him that 4. Since I will be doing every single pick-up and 90% of the weekday bedtimes alone, he is solely in charge of getting the fusspot out of the house and to her daycare, wherever it is. Every single day. Rain or snow, not my problem.

And yes, it was only #4 which made him mad. What can I say? We're just not morning people.

Thank you so much for all your comments and suggestions. They really helped me work through the situation, and I do think dealing with it via e-mail was a good idea.

So, new topic: meal plans. I am really excited (incredibly super-excited, Rachel) to get back to a regular ol' 2-parent household in the land of abundantly stocked supermarkets. So I've been thinking about dinner plans. I told JD I would cook 4 nights a week if he cooked 1 night a week (real meals, which require more than one serving dish and are not take-out). I figure we can eat leftovers/eat at work/pizza/let my MIL cook for the remaining two nights a week quite reasonably. And I may even institute something crazy like breakfast foods for dinner on Thursday night when the fusspot gets old enough to appreciate it. I love breakfast food, and it's fast and a fun little family tradition.

So I need to cook 4 meals a week. I figure I should aim for 2 dairy, 2 meat meals (yes, we keep kosher. But almost anything except for pork and shellfish can be modified to be kosher so don't feel restricted below). So here are dinners that I can make easily off the top of my head (any quick skimming of the list will reveal my deep love affair with my crockpots - perfect for shabbos, perfect for dinner on a busy day especially since I will be cooking with the fusspot under foot). So here is the question of the night, dear readers: what are your favorite 3-4 easy weekday dinners?

Dairy dinners:
mushroom lasagna
curry cauliflower soup
baked tortillas
enchiladas
butternut squash casserole
eggplant moussaka
creamy tofu with cold peanut noodles
egg-tomato-noodle stew
mushroom stroganoff
cream of brocoli soup (crockpot)
harira
vegetarian chili (crockpot)
baked mac and cheese
spicy peanut-tomato soup
baked salmon
stuffed whitefish
vegetable popovers (not a full meal but good)
lentil soup/stew
vegetarian pot pie (crockpot)
polenta (crockpot)
feta-olive pasta (stovetop)
grilled cheese (maybe it's not dinner for you, but I love it. Horseradish cheddar and whole wheat bread make it delicious)

meat dinners:
brisket
chicken stir fry
cold chicken salad
guiness beef stew (crockpot)
meat chili (crockpot)
spicy peanut chicken (crockpot)
sweet and sour chicken (crockpot)
beaf meatballs
steak

And now for my personal challenge of the month, I have challenged myself to enter into an online contest every day. We'll see if I win anything. 30 contests in the month of February (ok, so I'm at 5 already but that's a good thing given how busy this month is). I won't do contests you have to register for, I don't tweet/'follow' anyone/advertise for free on my blog/become 'facebook friends' so that rules out a number of contests, but there's still plenty of stuff out that and I want to see what happens this month. I'll let you know how it goes, but if you see any really good online contests I'd love to hear!