The Rookie Mama

How dare you. How dare you sneeze when I just spent 40 minutes putting a cranky baby to sleep. That you would have the audacity to perform an involuntary reaction like that just boils my blood. Well, she's crying again and what's that? It sounds like she's saying "Dad, it's your fault I'm up, so come here and comfort me!" You will snap at each other. You will stare daggers at each other. And sometimes, you will be utterly humourless and take things very, very personally. Such is the ever-changing dynamic of your relationship with your partner, now that your family tree has a grown a new little branch. We always knew we wanted to have children, but for a time, we were quite happy being DINKs (double income, no kids!). We partied, went on vacations, took random weekend getaways, and went to restaurants and movies on a whim. All of that started to slow before we made the decision to try and start a family. We were theoretically ready to take on the ch...

Bill 143 Child Care Modernization has passed its First Reading. The Bill seems to stem from well-meaning roots, but some of the proposed changes will wreak havoc on the current daycare situation and cause much difficulty for parents of young children. Ultimately, a number of fantastic, well-run home daycares will have to close and not only will we lose those providers but we will also flood an already-strained system with more children in need of care. A detailed, concise article explaining the issue can be found here , so I'll not repeat what has already been said. To sum up, the main changes focus on the unlicensed home daycares on which working families depend and the major issues are as follows: Providers are limited to 5 charges, including their own children under the age of 6. Previously, a provider could have 5 children in addition to his/her own   Providers are only permitted two charges under the age of two. This particular rule would apply to licensed and unlicens...