Babies

My best friend Gareth and his lovey wife Nicola had their first baby a few month ago - Bill (William) Jones.

He's a cutie and I love seeing him and G and Nic, they are natural parents of course!

Bill and I at Bambeans

I'm looking forward to babysitting properly and having him round to play with Ada when he gets older.

David's ex has also just had her second baby, Zackery. Another cutie!

 Zack and I at Chapter

David and I are looking forward to adding a little baby boy or girl to our family, but not for a while yet...unfortunately, in this 'day and age' we have to think about things like money and work and childcare before we can actually have another baby.

At the moment Ada goes to full-time childcare with David's sister who is a registered childminder, that costs us an average of £750 per month (almost as much as our mortgage!). Ada will be going to nursery in January 2013 (we hope) and this will cost around the same per month (IF we get a funded place with 2.5 hour a day free!) If we don't get funding, I don't think we'll be able to send her to our chosen nursery as it will be too expensive.

So, to have another baby we need Ada to be in school full time (which will be in September 2014 we think!) when she's nearly 5! (her birthday being in October means she'll be one of the oldest in her year, a good thing educationally, not so good for having another baby asap!)

 This means we can realistically have a baby 9 months before Ada starts school full time. Approx the beginning of December 2013, and so conception can be around March 2013...see how maticulously planned this all is to cover 9 months pregnancy and 9 months maternity leave! Nightmare...I still don't know if this is actually right.

Anyway, I think this shows that anyone who has family (grandparents) to look after their children between 1-4/5 years old are very very very lucky! not only does it mean that they can have their children closer together, but it also mean they have more money/have to spend a lot less on childcare and so can do more things like go on holiday and do home improvements or buy a bigger house for their growing family!

So, that's they way we think around here. I hope it made sense and you can understand the frustration we, and I'm guessing a lot of other young families, feel these days.

L x