Loooooove

I'm more in love with Casper every day lately. Her intelligence is on display and it's wonderful, and she expresses love and generally is such a great little person.

Smarts: noticed this morning that we had changed the sheets in our bed, from yellow to purple. Pushed aside the teddy bear, staring intently at sheets, then scritched them with her hand to assure herself that, yes, these were still sheets.

Love: Oh, the hugging. She prefers it with both hands grabbing my hair, and then she tries to eat my nose, but she does manage less violent expressions as well. Leans head on me in affection as I am sitting next to her.

Dying of cuteness: she has started that "must bury head in mummy's shoulder because I am shy" thing. Guh.

Less schmoop, more advice-needing

I am shortly to begin nanny-sharing with 2 other families. New!Nanny will take care of my colleague's children all day every day, and the other "slot" will be shared by Casper and the third family's son. Casper will spend 32 hours a week (actually a little less, but we're paying for 32) with New!Nanny at my colleague's house.

We are paying the nanny $14 an hour. When we started planning this, my colleague was going to leave her daughter in daycare for the summer, and have the nanny only care for her son. We decided at that time to each pay $7 an hour to the nanny. Now my colleague is pulling her daughter out of day care. I have tentatively brought up pro-rating the cost now that the nanny will be caring for three children at a time - her two plus my one. Yesterday during our meeting my colleague said "we can't afford it." I didn't push.

BUT. It's really starting to bother me. They have just sold their old house for $274K, and had enough cash to buy a new house and start renovating it six months before selling the old one; they are a 2-career couple both in professional positions; they own 3 cars and a scooter; this new child care solution is both cheaper and more convenient for them than their previous ones. mr. flea and I grossed less than 40K last year, I was shocked to discover when I did our taxes. We own no house, one car. So in the "we can't afford it" stakes, I think we win.

Also, it's just unfair. (Yes, I never quite grew out of the childhood "it's not fair" stage of moral life. I know, life is not fair. But it should be, damn it!)

mr. flea points out that even paying half, we are getting more hours of child care at a cheaper per-hour price than we have been paying. The weekly price is only $24 higher than we have been paying weekly for 6 months. His instinct is not to bother making an issue of it. And I get that, and we can afford it - not easily, but we can. But - it's not fair.

So, should I make this an issue? And if so, how to raise it nicely yet firmly? How hard should I push - how risky is it? (I should note that I am not interested in them paying 2/3 and us paying 1/3 - I'd actually be happy with them paying $8 and us paying $6 - which saves us $32 a week, not a lot, but it does add up - and at least acknowledges that they have 2 kids and we have 1.)