Our Growing Family

Money isn't exactly tight but the pressure of providing for a growing family is real. In a world where couples are marrying later in life, focusing more on advancing their respective careers and ultimately having fewer children, Tary and I would like to have 4 children (if God so chooses to bless us with that many). But everything is so expensive.

Daycare is barely affordable with our dual incomes. And that's with only one child. The other parents keep deploying dropping off their biological weapons sick kids at daycare which gets Daniel sick and in turn gets us sick. I'm not sure how we'll afford paying for daycare for even two kids.

We've talked about this a lot lately. Tary has the same work ethic that I do and she feels guilty not being able to provide monetarily for our family. But whatever she earned at work would quickly be negated by the costs of daycare for multiple children. The logical solution would be Tary eventually staying at home with the kids. We won't get as sick so we'll all be healthier. We'd also save a ton of money on daycare tuition.

The downsides however would be that our kids won't get to play with other kids their age as much. They'll miss out on the various activities done at daycare. They'll miss out on being with our favorite teacher, Miss Denise. And Tary will be exhausted taking care of them every day.

With more kids hopefully in our future everything needs to be reevaluated. We'll need to replace Tary's '04 Civic Coupe soon with a larger car. We're leaning toward the Camry so she could open the rear doors to load/unload the kids instead of climbing over the passenger seat as she does now.

I already have close to 60,000 miles on my '08 RAV4 so we'll need to replace that in a few years. Depending on our family needs, we might need to get a larger SUV or maybe even a minivan. We'll probably need something with a 3rd row by then.

Speaking of minivans, Tary has a thing against them. She hates them. And their drivers. Did I mention she hates them? At a recent visit at the dealership while we waited for my car to be serviced, Tary and I spent a few minutes INSIDE a 2011 Toyota Sienna! I'm not sure that would have happened a few months ago. I'm proud of Tary for at least keeping an open mind about it.

It's hard not to fantasize dream about the features of the highest trim levels for the Sienna. AWD would be great in the winter. The integrated backup camera would be nice to avoid parking like a stereotypical minivan driver. And the dual-screen option allows the kids to watch a movie on one screen and play a video game on the other. How cool is that?! Anyways, the need for something as large as a minivan is still years away and those features are very cost-prohibitive.

It's scary thinking that I might be only source of income for our family pretty soon. I'd love to add another source of income somehow but I hardly have enough time as it is. Freelance work is too time-consuming. Part-time jobs don't pay well enough to offset the time away from my family.

After a long day of work, all I want to do is be with Tary and Daniel. I barely watch TV and have completely stopped playing video games. I'm just tired to do anything else. I love giving Daniel baths. I love our bedtime routine of feeding him and holding him until he falls asleep in my arms. I enjoy being a Daddy and not just a father.

So right now I'm trying my hand at mobile app development for the Android platform. Android phones are the most popular devices right now. If I could somehow write an app or two that millions of people download and pay for, that could provide extra income for our family. It's tough finding the time and energy to learn how to develop on the platform. All I can do is chip away at it each night after Daniel has gone to bed. Maybe one day I'll have something to show for it and that new Sienna to drive us around in.