Working for the weekend

One of the biggest perk of working for a school district is the summers off- and all holidays, basically you have the same schedule as your kids.   This summer I am taking a vacation from vacations.  I have picked up a few jobs to add to our adoption fund.

 I have to part time gigs with my school district.  I am working summer school for special needs kids.  This position is an easy one; I am doing my regular school year stuff and I am in an air conditioned space (it was 105 outside today).  This job is only 3 hours a day, once a week.  I also picked up a curriculum position with my district.  This one is a pretty sweet position.  I am working with a team of teachers, librarians and technology specialist on a project for the 5th grade curriculum.  Only 2 weeks long, air conditioned again and a good team of people. 

I also found a babysitting job through SitterCity.com.  This is a great way to find a babysitter and free to military families.  Anyone can join, but non military families pay a fee, the sitters can join for free.  Sitters create profiles, their educational background, work experience, availability, etc.  Parents post jobs and sitters can apply to them.  Parents have the peace of mind because they can have sitters background checked.  And this is a much safer options for sitters than posting on Craigslist or something like that.  A few days of week in July, I am picking a little girl up from camp and bringing her back to her home. 

I am also babysitting my Bulgarian neighbor's daughter.  This is completely coincidental, but worked out well for me.  The grandma was watching the child, but got sick and can't anymore.  The parents applied for a daycare placement, but are on a waiting list.  This has worked out great for me, and the family because they have only been speaking to her in Bulgarian.  She's 13 months and we've requested a child under 3 put preferably around 18 months.  With the institutional delay our child will have, she's right at the level our little one will be at when he comes home.  Since babysitting her, I've realized there are a lot of Bulgarian words I don't know. 
Here's a bit of what I learned:
kolichka- stroller (literally just cart)
beberon- pacifier/ dummy/ binky (they don't use these in the orphanage)
morskovo zvezda- starfish (why is this important?  She's got a little starfish toy)
I've also learned the animal sounds- remember pigs don't really say "oink" and every language has a different way of expressing these.

So if my posts are infrequent this summer, remember: I've had a long day and its really, really hot here! :-)