I had an awesome birthday weekend of tailor made activities, which I will mostly post about on Make Do because it was a weirdly symbiotically weekend of using vs. owning, which is all I'm going to say about that for now. On the owning front, I did score some beautiful books, magnets made out of vintage typewriter keys, Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" (a cookbook I am in LOVE with) and gift certificates to clothing stores because my family knows that I could be much better dressed. Agreed, family! Point taken.

I spent much of today trying to decide whether or not to apply for a 10 hour job at school - it's a neat position, but I already work 20 hours at another job. And take 3 classes in Grad School. And have a baby I wish to spend time with. And homework to do. And projects I want to do. And commuting. And community volunteering. And a house to perpetually clean. But the real push/pull was my kid. I want to spend extra time with her two mornings a week before classes, but if I got this job, I'd have to give that up. So she would spend more time in daycare. But I would make enough extra money that we could conceivably send her to a better daycare. Just. My extra salary would just cover the difference. Did you know a high quality daycare costs $1100 a month? More than our rent. More than my internship salaries. How do the "average" Americans do it? We went to Target for baby things only this week - the disposable diapers daycare requires, the food I need to pack for her lunch and snacks, the wipes, the paper towels for the thrice daily high chair wipe downs etc et al and forever and ever - and it was $100 we really didn't have. Ouch. I bought the cheapest soap and the Target brand body wash and anything else I could do to scrimp and still...and AH makes a decent salary! And we live in a fairly cheap city! It's frightening. So five minutes ago I applied for the job. It's no assurance I will get it - but I weighed the options. I had to choose between time with my kid or a better quality person to act as my parental substitute - and the hope that we wouldn't always live paycheck to paycheck. I hope she'll forgive me one day.