There are free options for day care for the girls... namely Head Start. We don't really have a lot of experience with them, but based on some conversations I have had with others that have looked into them and then also because there are other requirements (more home visits) that happen when your child is in the program we opted to pick up part of the tab for our girls for other daycare/school options. It isn't that we don't like home visits, but we have enough already.
Today I had my first true experience with Head Start. Sissy is going to get into the early program for Pre-K and our daycare/school is a participant. Trick is, in order to qualify for "ours" one must first be waived out of the Head Start program. I didn't know this until I was wondering at school last week what the hold-up on acceptance was and they then informed me that the waiver was needed (I'm not proud of our school's administration either, but the teachers are awesome). They did however double check the system to make sure that Sissy's name wasn't in and needing approval. So I called Head Start today. While very nice, they were not aware that a three year old qualifies if the birthday is early enough in the fall and they apparently have not recently checked the system to see if they needed to accept anyone. *sigh*
Okay... so here is my thought on this. The income for this program is VERY low to be accepted. For a family of 4 the guaranteed acceptance is 24k or lower. Families in this bracket probably need a lot of help. These families are most likely not calling the school to check on their qualifications. Especially since the website you register on is not a Head Start website. For those of us first time round in the foster system this is also quite tricky. If there is a second go around with this I now know who to contact. While our "family" income puts us not in the bracket, the girls are not governed by our status.
I'm writing this right now while supervising "rest time" and the quote of the moment is "Bug, don't eat your bed." There is the distinct possibility by the end of this week that she will no longer have a bed frame as I will take it away if necessary.
I'm going to give the waiver 24 hours and then the girls and I will go to their school tomorrow to turn in paperwork and check on the status. We are still waiting on DHS to pick up half the cost (school is going to backdate their bill for us), but if we can get Sissy in the free program that would help immensely. This paying nearly a paycheck a month for daycare is a bit much, but then again, if we didn't go with them I probably would have lost my mind by now. I credit their school for potty training, colors, numbers, recognizing alphabets, decreasing separation anxiety, and really, giving us the ability to do this.
I also gave a call to Quicken this morning. They have been getting some great reviews and they just sent info with some reasonable rates for home refi and from a friend's experience they are super easy to work with. We are on track to refi for 15 years (I have 20 left on my current) and have lower payments. That would be super awesome and I would even be able to shave that 15 down more since I always overpay on my home loan. What is even more awesome is that they guarantee their own loans so that I won't have to work with the bank my mortgage is currently with and a customer service nightmare!
Well, the girls are both now asleep for their naps, so I can get up from this floor. My project list is long and it now includes more laundry as the very recently cleaned sheets are extremely dirty because how much ALL the animals love Sissy.
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