Erin will be bailing on the school year several weeks early, working through Memorial Day (May 26) then calling it good. For several reasons, not just pregnancy, this has been a more difficult academic year than most, and taking a few weeks off before baby #3 strikes us both as a very good opportunity to recharge our batteries before the new kid arrives and drains all our energy.
At this moment we’re also exploring the idea of Erin working half-time next fall. If my calculations are correct, it would cost us about $8000 out of pocket to make this happen. It may be well-worth doing with baby #3 on the scene. In some respects this may be a chicken-or-egg problem: What would make full-time worthwhile is having very few preps (classes to prepare) but until the school knows whether Erin will be be full- or half-time, they don’t know what schedule or how many preps they’ll be giving her. So we may have to leave it to chance and hope for the best, which I assure you is not the way I like to live my life.
In some respects though I can’t lose. If Erin’s back full-time we’ll have enough money to replace the aging Honda Civic (probably with a Honda Fit, but we’ll see), continue our presently stalled house remodeling efforts, and add to my ever-growing collection of Macintosh computers.
If Erin goes half-time, I should be able to dramatically expand my Mac consulting business—which continues to grow nicely—and we’ll all get to spend a lot more time together as a family.