After having Gage, I returned to work as planned with just a few bumps along the way. Before G’s arrival Evan and I had met and secured a sitter with an in home daycare. I thought it was the perfect balance of structure with a small, nurturing environment. It was close to our house, and after searching and searching and making countless phone calls, I was so glad to have somewhere I felt really good about.
Once Gage arrived, I called the sitter to confirm his start date and we were good to go. A few days later I got a call back from her informing me she was ill and needed to close her daycare. Rather than going into full on panic mode, I just picked up the search where we left off. There were some OK options, but nothing that felt like a fit. Gage’s occupational therapist reviewed my list of potential daycares and gave me her input since she’s been in many facilities working with other kids. Then, she called me and told me she had found our 
new sitter. I was skeptical, but after the first phone call with our future sitter, LC, my doubts were quickly put at ease. I hung up the phone and looked down at the baby in my arms through teary eyes and with a shaky voice told him, “See, God will always take care of us.”
When we first talked, LC told me that we were an answer to her prayers. Little did she know, that in such a big way, she was the answer to ours! Our first face-to-face meeting with her was great. She showed us every room in her house and her laid back personality really put us at ease. During the time Gage spent there, I got to know her and her family. Each of her kids has the sweetest personality. She was flexible, practical and most importantly, loved Gage like one of her own. Beyond taking excellent care of my son, she became a true friend to me and was always kind and understanding.
When Gage was about a year old, we found a house for sale on the complete opposite side of town, but much closer to our extended families. I broke the news to LC that we might be moving and then began dreading the thought of finding somewhere else for Gage. Moving and buying and selling houses always comes with stress, but what really bothered me was the childcare issue. I told Evan I would live anywhere with him–it didn’t matter as long as we were together. But letting just anyone care for our boy was a different story. The daycare search began yet again, and still, nothing felt right. Not only were places just not the right fit, I would leave a tour of a daycare facility and burst into tears! We decided to keep Gage with LC on a short term basis so we could make other plans and she could too. She had another kiddo lined up to take his spot in January, and we found a daycare with a spot for Gage close to work for both of us. In the car driving back from a visit with my parents one weekend, Evan and I started talking about the long commute to the sitter’s. At different times over the weekend, we’d both been asked how bad that long drive was. Not knowing how the other answered, or had even been asked, when we talked on our way home we realized we had both responded the same way…it’s not bad at all. That evening, I text LC to ask if Gage could stay till the end of the school year and she replied with an enthusiastic yes and informed me the other kiddo had fallen through.
All of this may seem trivial to some, but I’d be willing to bet that any parent who has searched for full time care for their kiddo knows how stressful it can be. Life is full of curve balls, but things have a way of working out the way they are supposed to. All my worry over finding the right care could have been saved if I only remembered what I told Gage after that first phone call with LC –God will take care of us. He is the ultimate caregiver and is invested in even the smallest details of our lives. Although Gage goes to a new daycare now that he’s a big two-year-old, I’ll always be grateful for the time he spent with LC and the answered prayer we found in her.
“The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” Psalm 37:23
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Matthew 6:25-27