Last week my dentist held an informational meeting for military retirees to help navigate the maze thousands of military families have suddenly found themselves in – choosing their medical coverage through Tricare, otherwise known as open season.

I was the youngest person in the room, by about 20 years. And the consensus among attendees and medical professionals was: this first year of Tricare open season is a confusing one.

As my dentist’s insurance specialist explained, since it is the first time, there isn’t a lot of solid information. The amounts that each plan will pay for each type of service isn’t completely clear which makes it hard to determine what the enrollee’s payout will be after having a root canal or other costly procedure.

Many of us have additional insurance through civilian employers and the mathematical equations to determine which insurance will pay for what are not simple either.

If you haven’t picked your Tricare coverage, your deadline is Dec. 10, so you need to sit down now and review your options.

Determine your needs. If you have small children you most likely won’t need orthodontics yet. Does everyone in your house wear glasses? Take a closer look at the vision plans for the best option to replace frames for small children who may break or lose them more often. 

You may need to spend the next few days on the phone with both Tricare and your secondary insurance through your civilian employer. Who pays for what? Which one is considered your primary (it’s not always Tricare) and is there a waiting period for certain procedures? Some insurances can make you wait up to a year before using your benefits to pay for a larger procedure such as a root canal.

Now is not the time to be afraid to ask questions. Ask them all but be prepared to spend some serious time both on the phone and on the computer reviewing your options.

But be certain, the time is worth it. When you are staring at a costly medical bill and realize you skipped over the coverage that would have left you with a minimal co-pay you will regret not looking at the fine print during open season.

Worried you’ll miss something with the new open season system? Here’s what you need to know:

A few reminders:

• Open season applies to both active duty and retired service members and their families.
• If you are happy with your current choice of Tricare plans, you don’t have to do anything.
• Open season only applies to those with Prime or Select. Other plans, such as Tricare Retired Reserve, Young Adult and Tricare for Life, are not part of the change.
• After Dec. 10, you’ll have to wait until next year’s open season to make any changes unless you have a “Qualifying Life Event,” or QLE.
• Open season will happen at approximately the same time each year – from the second week in November until the second week of October.
• Changes made to your Tricare plan during open season do not take effect until Jan. 1.
• A QLE is a major life change such as retirement, deployment, marriage, divorce, birth of a child and certain types of PCS moves, among other things.
• It doesn’t cost anything to switch plans, but you will have to pay any costs associated with the new plan (for example the enrollment fee for Prime).

Need to look over the plans or enroll? Visit https://tricare.mil

Have you shopped outside the gate lately? Did you feel a slight sticker shock at the price of even the simplest of items?

That’s because prices are rising and it could be bad news for all of us.

CNN reported that the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the cost of common shopping list items, rose 2.9 percent in June, the biggest jump since 2012. Paychecks, however, have not increased at the same rate. The report also says average hourly earnings only increased 2.7 percent. If you fall in this category, it means you can’t buy more, you are just paying more for what you already buy.

In the same time period, sales at commissaries have fallen 21.3 percent since 2012.

Read that again, the military commissary, which military families have routinely named as the second most valued benefit after health care, is not being used as much by military families.

And as far as the calculator pushers at the federal government are concerned, use it, or lose it.

While both the Department of Defense and Congress don’t want to do away with the commissary, they do want it to cost less, according to Military.com.

The DOD wants to lower the amount of money it gives for commissary operations from $1.4 billion in 2017 to $400 million by 2021. The only way to do that? Generate more sales.

That won’t happen if more of us are headed out the front gate to do our shopping. Experts say the commissary is also competing with meal order services. And there is the long-standing argument of just how much you save shopping at the commissary vs big box chains such as Walmart.

We would argue the value is enough for all of us to make shopping at the commissary a priority.

Military life is inconsistent. Changes are constant. Move is inevitable. One constant: the commissary. You can rely on the commissary to keep prices constant and affordable, even when you move to a duty station like Hawaii where staples like milk can cost $6 – 8 a gallon in a civilian store.

You also rely on those constant low prices when you leave your job in the next PCS move and your family drops to a one-income household for what could be months. Few other stores outside the gate can help you stretch your dollar as far as the commissary.

The bottom line: shop at your commissary. We guarantee you will miss it when it’s gone.

By Amy Nielsen

This year may well see a ginormous shift for us. It has come to my attention that the master’s degree I am pursuing is going to take a whole lot more concentration as we progress toward the walk. Coupled with a change up in the neighborhood dynamics, it looks like we will be moving to a more traditional schooling pattern for my girls. My two kids are currently reporting in grade school as homeschool students in our district.

Yep, my kids are gonna hit public school after only ever having experienced pre-school many years ago.

Probably.

My greatest concern is not that they will be under stimulated after the dynamic day we usually have at home. It’s not that they will be unable to complete the work because we have deviated from the scholastic norm so much. What I am worried about is their growing sense of self and their ability to make it through a year still smiling. School is not what it was when I went. It’s much worse now.

I have one kiddo that is the life of the party. She is the class clown when we meet up with other friends for group classes. She has the spark of every rainbow ever created bursting from her little body. She is smart and creative and powerfully athletic. She is also physically disabled and is often chasing toads in her wheelchair.

My other one is a dreamer plain and simple. She is the kid that watches how it’s done so they know exactly how to do the thing right - that when they finally get to do it, there is nothing left to get. She is the one with the light of distant stars in her eyes with a touch of moon dust and clover in her pocket.

Thankfully our school system is tiny. When I say tiny, I mean one elementary school and one middle school small. The kids go to a county high school small. The elementary has 10 classrooms for six grades small. Classes of under 20 small.

I mean no metal detectors small.

This move to public school affords us to tackle two different conundrums with one proverbial stone. I need concentrated school time for my own studies as I begin earnest work on my thesis. My kids are interested in exploring learning in a more structured style. It helps that our neighbors’ kids are going back to school from homeschooling and will be in the same school and possibly in the same class.

I know that the life dreams my girls whisper at bedtime are beyond my current abilities to support them to. It might be time to reach out to those other resources that a school environment will provide. Beyond the social experiment in peer to peer socialization everyone is so worried about when we homeschool. With several friends who are teachers throughout the U.S., I know that there are opportunities afforded only to school kids that are feeders to the kinds of programs that will get them better positioned to achieve their dreams.

Having a science teacher plugged into the pulse of extracurricular activities is something missing from our current structure. Having a district to be able to help support my athlete in her competitive goals is something homeschooling has a hard time replacing. There are just some things that are better taught in a group setting. Gathering homeschoolers for a project is like herding cats into the bath. Rarely do we have the numbers or regular availability for team sports.

Homeschooling has given us the ability to see this opportunity as a social experiment of sorts, as an investment in learning how “the other half” learn. A tenant of our schooling has always been that to learn by experience is always the best practice.

It is important to be able to walk a mile in another’s shoes when given the opportunity, and this is that chance. If it goes south in a hand basket, being homeschoolers, we will just continue our current curriculum at home with the interim school time chalked up to something to revisit with a better plan in mind.

What do I most look forward to – six hours of uninterrupted writing time and new friends.

What do I most dread about this experiment, early morning school buses and IEP meetings.

Send coffee and wine.

By Amy Nielsen

I don’t remember when I fully understood that May is a problematic month for me. I know it has been so for a very long stretch of my life. It is both my most favorite month and also the month I most prefer to keep at arm’s length. In working on a project for school, I am required to write a timeline of my life and I have been struck by certain patterns. Events in May seem to top the list.

May is traditionally seen as the glorious bursting forth of life after the rains of April washing all the seeds of the earth as they are heated with lengthening sun. In truth, buds quite literally burst open in the warm sun as they swell with cell growth at a rate that we can see with the naked eye and measure by the hour in some plants.

Ladybugs emerge from the window panes while orange newts and garden snakes sun on the slate path. Skunks and peepers dominate the still chilly nights. Goslings and eaglets. Bunny kits scatter when I walk to the car in the morning. You can almost hear the buzz of the electrons being transferred as the sun rises stronger every morning.

This energy is infectious and sends my focus to scatter with the winds that swirl with the thunderous storm drafts.

The events that have happened in May over the years are difficult to list without sounding like a litany of personal catastrophe alternating with ridiculous coincidence. Suffice to say that there are several birthdays - mine, my Dad’s, and my daughter’s. There are several personal childhood surgeries always landing in May. Having spent a lot of years in a private school, it marks the beginning of summer being let out several weeks earlier than our public school counterparts. Last, but arguably the most catastrophic, it is the month that took my Dad from me.

That last one might seem to many like the biggie, but it really was just the universal exclamation point on an already crystal clear message. May is trouble.

Ever since I was a kid, May has been a month of anxiety. My May usually meant either packing like a crazy person to spend the months before the next school year overseas, or prepping like a crazy person for surgery on my knees so we could leave for overseas as soon as I was recovered enough.

In reading over this assignment I have the regular sense of déjà vu as I write out yet another seasonal march of weirdness in May. In the last few years I have made a study of May, and this year is no different. I know that I started focusing on May the year we bought this house. We closed on May 1.

When the realtor put the key in my hand that early May morning, I felt for all the world like there was a shift in the fabric of the universe. It was a shift I knew well having felt it a few times before already. For once, however, I actually was able to focus on it and understand that it was a shift into another plane of my progression in this life and to be welcomed rather than a ticket to a new level of panic and terror.

That first May at our house in Grove Hill was a great and glorious one. One for the record books. It was filled with new experiences, hard work, and a personal sense of accomplishment I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was the beginning of my next go around.

The following May was among the most terrible as it was an anniversary of a huge loss. For almost 25 years, now more than half my lifetime, I have been without my Dad. He was killed in a car accident in May so very long ago. May is our shared birthday month and I firmly believe a little of his soul lives in his granddaughter born on a Mother’s Day that happened to fall the day before his birthday.

It is interesting to note from a purely clinical side that the majority of my manic episodes begin in May. I have had this pointed out to me recently by a few learned folks in both my professional and personal circles. The key now will be to get a plan together so the summer doesn’t explode into pixie dust or dragon flame and I have a shot at not collapsing again next May.

So to say May is complicated is somewhat of an understatement.

In working with a Shaman from a long way away a couple years ago, I learned to hear myself in a way I had never before. So now I listen to May with ears tuned to my energy. I have learned about the fire in the belly of one with a connection to the May energy, the fire of Beltane, the bursting of bud.

The flipside to all of this is that I absolutely adore the nature of May. After the winter, May feels like I can breathe again, even and especially with all of the blasted pollen. There is finally enough sunlight that I feel like I am alive. Every day, even the rainy, chilly one, I can see progress of each leaf growing, I can smell the oxygen being returned to the air by the plants, I can feel the Earth warming under my feet.

May is such a glorious riot of emotion that I get turned around and upside down. I can’t contain the energy that zooms around and begs, no demands, to be entertained. A May thunderstorm will for sure remind you how small and insignificant you are. May is very merry and also very problematic.

By Amy Nielsen

It’s spring break week. Who knew that Master’s programs got spring break too? I mean, I guess I figured they did, but never really thought about it. Do doctorate students get spring break? I suppose the question should be do we take spring break or just keep plowing along?

In my case, I am taking a break. Not only was last term a dozy in materials and projects, but it was super stressful in my personal life too. I got really sick over the winter with no time to deal with it. So now, with this beautiful two weeks of no classes, I am taking the time to slow down and rest. I know next term will be as full as this last and I need to be healthy and in the right frame of mind for it.

We get two weeks off between spring term and summer term. Last week I spent catching up with my personal life, getting into missed medical appointments, and generally reconnecting with everything and everyone not related to school. I even read a novel and baked cookies.

This week, I need to make sure to not rev up too early for classes next week. I am planning something fun and not remotely education related each day. I will check in with my classrooms as they are open online already. I’ll print out the syllabi and the first weeks’ worth of assignments and set up my files. My books are mostly here and ready to go already. I still have to order the online toolkit we need for one class.

This past term was full of fascinating topics I really wanted to get deeper with but in the interest of time and keeping up with the lectures, I never went down those rabbit holes. Now I get to spend hours reading related yet tangential papers and surfing through professional pages searching for more tidbits to add to my project. Some people read romance, I read peer reviewed papers.

Eventually I will have to write a 50-page thesis to end out program. While I have a topic in mind, it is deep and expansive and could encompass a wide swathe of material. Now that I know a bit more about how the body works from my daily classwork, I can start to develop the outline for what I want to write about. This first pass at bullet points during one of two such spring breaks I will get in my Master’s career is proving to be not only fun, but re-invigorating to my research. I suspect I will spend next year’s spring break madly editing the thesis.

I really want to spend this week diving down those rabbit holes and working on tangential topics, and bullet points. Because I started this program with a solid, yet self-taught background, I am quickly learning where the tractor trailer sized holes in my knowledge base are. I am hoping to remedy some of those missing pieces this week as well. So I am starting with the basics and going up from there.

This serves two purposes. It fills out the beginning of the thesis, the part where one tells about the pathology of this condition, differences in presentation, the signs and symptoms, and traditional treatment courses. It also makes sure that I know that those gaps are cleared up in my own knowledge base. As the condition I am researching is one I live with, this is making for some very interesting discussions with my medical professionals.

While in class session, I don’t have time to breathe let alone research topics to my current line. I am too busy doing the class work to play. I am working hard to make sure every assignment I do follows my thesis project topic in order to not waste the research time. But, that leaves me precious little time for side trips.

I am a nut. I love to research. I love to learn new things. I love to find out that an assumption on my part is wrong and more importantly what the right information is. I like to problem solve. When I was told no such protocol existed for my condition, I decided it was my job to create one. So now I am learning everything I can about this topic, soup to nuts. It became the topic for my thesis and eventually my practice.

They, the grand They, say that if you do what you love you will never work a day in your life. I think I am learning this spring break that I love what I do. I love what I am learning. I can’t help but read about it when I could be reading about faeries or romance. I want to meet interesting people in my field to discuss theories of etiology and pathology. The snow has finally stopped falling here in upstate New York and I should be running for the hills to hike, but I’d rather run to the library and check out a fact in Grey’s Anatomy.

How many old ball gowns do you have in your closet? Tired of moving them in each PCS? Tired of hoping you’ll fit back into them after your last pregnancy?

Donate them! There are prom gown collections happening across the nation this spring to make sure high school girls who cannot afford a dress can still have the gown of her dreams.

Nationally, David’s Bridal has teamed up with Becca’s Closet, a non-profit that collects prom dresses for teens in need. You can drop off your dress with a local Becca’s Closet chapter or visit the David’s Bridal website to download and print your free shipping label, pack your dress and mail, for free to the closest Becca’s Closet program.

You can find a list of local Becca’s Closet programs at this website: www.beccascloset.org

Many military installations and spouse groups also collect dresses each spring to donate locally. Check with your local spouse club, MWR office or even the second-hand store on-base.

After a career-worth of military balls, let those designer gowns out of the bag and enjoy another night out on the town. And, help an under privileged girl feel like Cinderella for the night. 

Who else out there felt like a rock star when scientists reported last year that people who swear more and are messier are generally smarter?

Yep, I was suddenly awesome.

Soon after, researchers in Belgium and Miami conducted studies that concluded that people who stayed up late and slept in were generally smarter, more productive and more creative than their early to bed early to rise counterparts.

Heck ya, all my most bothersome traits were suddenly a goldmine of success.

Until now.

This month Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine reported that night owls also have an increased risk for diabetes, psychological problems and risk of dying.

Uh oh.

The study tracked nearly half a million adults in the United Kingdom over six years. Researchers believe the night owls in that study who suffered physical ailments were fighting an internal battle – their internal clock which preferred the night couldn’t keep up with the outside world which operated during daylight hours.

Also, researchers said members of the study who identified as night owls were twice as likely to report having a psychological illness.

So, what to do? Work on resetting your internal clock.

The researchers suggested gradually setting back your bedtime until you were going to bed at a more reasonable hour. They also said to ban all use of technology in the bed. Eating right and exercising should help too.

So, I while I mourn the loss of my late night hours where I felt more productive and creative, it is problem time to start setting my alarm and for my fellow night owls to do the same. Never fear, eating of the early worm not required. 

Buying a home is one of the biggest decisions many of us will ever make, not only financially, but emotionally as well.

It’s also one of the things many soon-to-be military retiree families look forward to the most. We want to buy curtains and rugs that actually fit and match, paint the walls and replace the flooring and install whatever countertops we like best.

We want a place of our own. Or, as many call it, a “forever home.”

But is buying a house a wise choice when in the midst of leaving the military?

The answer varies widely depending on who you ask. Even retirement planners and financial experts have different opinions. Some say you should wait to see exactly what your financial situation will be post-retirement, and that it doesn’t make sense to make such a huge decision in the midst of an even bigger life change like retirement.

Others say you should always buy rather than rent, because real estate is a long-term investment. The keyword there is long-term, though – most military retirees relocate to another city at least twice, if not more, during the first five years after leaving the service.

The forever home we’ve all dreamed of is, apparently, a myth.

In our case, we did buy a home, about nine months after retirement (we lived in our RV in the meantime, while we decided where to settle). We didn’t plan to buy – we were going to do the “smart” thing and make sure we really like the area. However, we ended up moving to a resort/tourist town, where long-term rentals are expensive and in short supply. It was much cheaper, on a monthly basis at least, for us to buy.

Everyone should consult their own financial expert and determine the best course of action for their particular situation. But here are seven things to consider when choosing whether to buy or rent a home during or immediately after the retirement process, based solely on my family’s own experience over the past year:

• Income. This one catches a lot of people by surprise. When you apply for a mortgage, the lender will ask for proof of how much money you make, and how much you have in savings (they will often require an amount equal to three months’ mortgage or more). They’ll also look at your debt – car payments, other real estate, credit cards, basically any bills that you pay or money owed. The lender has to make sure that you can afford the mortgage, not just now but in the future. The surprise part is this: You could be turned down for a loan if you can’t prove post-retirement income. Some lenders will take a memo from a future employer, if you have one. Others will take an online printout of a retirement calculator showing the service member’s retirement amount. But many lenders will require actual pay stubs or proof that retirement income is already being paid, in some cases for as long as 12 months prior to the home purchase. The bottom line? If you plan to buy a house during retirement, make sure you have plenty of cash saved up, and that you have adequate proof of income to cover the mortgage, no matter if that income is from a job, retirement, disability or winning the lottery.

• Finances. See above. But also consider this: Just because a bank will give you a loan, it doesn’t mean you can afford the house. Conversely, just because you think you can afford the mortgage, the bank might not. We qualified for a slighter lower loan amount than we hoped for. In the end, it worked to our advantage because it helped keep us from spending beyond our means.

• Cost. This is where we looked especially closely when considering whether to rent or buy. Buying a house comes with a lot more expenses than many first-time home buyers realize. Besides the mortgage, there are taxes and insurance, and of course maintenance. You also should have money set aside for emergency repairs. The last thing you want to do is go into debt because your “new” house needs a major roof repair or HVAC replacement six months after you move in.

• Mortgage. We had only ever bought one house before, and that was almost 12 years ago. We had no idea you could “shop” for mortgages. We bounced offers back and forth between three different lenders, and ended up getting our interest rated dropped .5 percent, as well some closing costs covered.

• Loan type. Lots of retirees use a VA loan. The biggest benefit is, unlike a conventional loan, a VA loan doesn’t require any down payment. This allows you to get a loan while preserving your cash in the bank, but it also means your monthly mortgage payment will be higher. Other than that, VA loans have the same qualification as any other home loan. One other thing to note: The VA has maximum loan limits by region. You can go over the maximum, but in that case you will have to provide a 25 percent down payment for the amount above the loan limit.

• VA funding fee. Generally, anyone who has a service-connected VA disability rating is eligible to have the loan funding fee waived. Depending on your home purchase price, this can equal several thousand dollars. But the requirements are tricky. According to the VA, the veteran must have already applied for disability at the time of closing in order to be eligible for the waiver. Like many things, there is a lot of confusing information about this topic online, so be sure to consult the VA directly to ask about a funding fee waiver.

• Property taxes. As mentioned above, this is a cost to consider when calculating your monthly payments. Some states waive a portion of your property taxes, or even all of it, based on VA disability. Once you do buy a house, be sure to check with your local tax office to see if this benefit is available.

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, made headlines earlier this year for announcing that she vowed to change senate rules to make it easier for future senators to take maternity leave.

In fact she told CNN, it was ridiculous that these types of changes were still making headlines in 2018.

She’s right. The U.S. lags far behind the rest of the developed world in granting workers not just maternity leave, but also any guaranteed paid leave of any kind. The U.S., in fact is the only advanced economy that does not mandate paid sick or maternity leave.

Most American works are covered by the Family Medical Leave Act, which grants 12 weeks of leave per year to care for family members, but that time is unpaid. Nearly 40 other countries offer some level of paid time off for new mothers with the bulk of those nations offering between 15 – 20 weeks. Bulgaria tips the scale at 60 weeks off.

There are no U.S. Federal laws mandating paid sick time or vacation time. While the federal government closes for 10 federal holidays each year, these days are not mandated as time off for all U.S. workers.

You can Google the reasons why the U.S. is so different from every other developed nation when it comes to granting paid time off. Much of the reasoning comes from the aftermath of World War II. According to NPR, when the men came home from battle, the women left the jobs they picked up to help the homefront and returned to their roles as wife and mother. There was no reason to legislate policies that helped them balance work and home.

Meanwhile in Europe, the infrastructure was destroyed, as was the population. Women had to be in the workplace so paid leave policies were put in place to urge more women to join the workforce and rebuild the nation.

Now that American women are an integral part of the workforce, they are still fighting for their rights to be mothers as well. Trade groups and chambers of commerce have rebuffed efforts to implement paid-leave laws.  

Sen. Duckworth is right. Why are we still discussing this in 2018? Why should American women constantly be asked to choose between being an integral, important part of the workforce and an attentive mother?

They shouldn’t. Sen. Duckworth is a purple heart recipient who lost both legs during the Iraq War in 2004. She the first disabled woman and the second Asian-American woman to serve in the Senate.

It is time to stand behind her and demand changes be made to require paid maternity leave in America.

By Amy Nielsen

Next week I add a new dynamic to this already crazy life. My younger daughter starts weekly medical treatment at a hospital three hours from home.

Normally this would not be a huge addition to our week as it is really just a day trip and easily done. We’ve been doing it for years almost like clockwork in the early part of the year. Because of the nature of her treatments our appointments are conveniently always on Monday.

This year however, we have the added wrinkle of my on-campus, weekend long classes at a school an additional hour south of the hospital. This would be terrific for us as we homeschool and we could really get a chance to explore two near-by big cities with an abundance of history, attractions, and proximity to other far flung friends.

Seems like a total no brainer. Pack up the fam, including the dog, and head to the adopted home for the next five weekends. Find an air B&B to rent or as the weather warms hop in the RV. In my other life this is exactly what we would do. However, this is not my other life, where things fall neatly into place.

Due to the ever changing crucible that is my husband’s job, he has no static schedule. He is often times on 12-hour shifts that turn into longer as is the case with all first responders. The schedule changes weekly with no rhyme or reason. Somedays its morning, some days evening; others just for fun its eight to two. If he worked a standard Monday to Friday, weekends off kind of job – if such a thing even exists anymore – we would have a much easier time juggling this. While he could opt to use his Family Medical Leave Act days, his team is already short staffed and adding the burden of taking a three day weekend off, five times in the next three months puts undo pressure on an already stressful situation.

So I am forced to do the thing that makes the least possible sense. I will drive five hours south on Friday – passing within mere miles of the hospital - go to class Saturday and Sunday, then drive five hours north home; to turn around on Monday morning and drive three hours south back to the hospital and round trip it so we still have a prayer of doing anything else in the week.

I love to drive. Don’t get me wrong. I really, really do. But senseless driving makes me a bit crazy. If there were a way for me to find someone trustworthy in that central city to park my kidlets with while I go to school, we would be golden. Unfortunately, I know exactly no one in that city. There is no way I would trust someone off the internet to watch them in a strange city, with no other contacts for support.

As our nuclear family has journeyed and we no longer live within a neat village system like military housing, let alone inter-generationally in the town of our birth, child care has become a growing need for us. For the most part we just travel all together or at least the kids and I. If we are traveling it is usually something educational for them or an event we are all invited to. When the event means I have to be otherwise occupied and unable to be primarily attentive to them, we run into trouble.

To be honest, they would probably be just fine doing their own school work in the corner of the classroom, and when done, entertain themselves on mindcraft or stupid cat videos until we were ready to wrap up. We homeschool and they are used to pulling up a corner of rug and opening their workbooks to the lesson at hand and digging in. It’s one of my greatest joys of schooling them. They like to learn. My school, however, frowns on children in the classroom.

So we are at a crossroads scrambling to find overnights and schedule shifts that leave us with the fewest hours of unminded children we can. Once we have that sorted out, I will begin to completely panic. I might have a few leads on friends of friends still in the area, but that is only one step removed from total strangers.

The other hurdler is where to have them hang out. I’m not sure the hours in the hotel room with kids doing homework is what the sitters on SitterCity are envisioning when I posted testing the waters for a person more local to the school. It is not the reason to bring them with me either. The reason is for them to see the city and learn about things first hand.

My other option is to try to hire someone from home to travel with me for the weekends. The drawback I can see to that is expense. I have a feeling that a weekend Nanny gig including going out of state, might just be too much for my meager wallet to handle. I’m not even sure I can swing a sitter for the eight hours over two days of classes.

I really want to have my kids explore another iconic American city and this is the perfect opportunity. I just need to find the right person to help me while I sit in class for a few hours each day. The call of the adult student Mom – if only I had childcare.