I spent my (3) kiddos summer vacation working from home instead of daycare. It was the most rewarding experience of my life. I'm going to miss these days.

My wife and I both work full time in addition to me running a side business, but we calculated expenses putting all 3 of our kiddos in daycare to somewhere between $2K - $2.5K per month, so I asked my day job boss if I could work from home considering I'd done it a few times during the school year when kids were sick or school wasn't in session.It was quite the challenge to balance quality activities with my kids as well as my companies mobile app workload (I'm a software engineer), but we found a good balance relatively quickly. Luckily, all 3 kiddos are around the same age (6m, 5f and 4m) are potty trained and generally well behaved.One of my goto's was turning our table into a school center where we'd work on Pre-K, K and 1st grade math & reading worksheets, but this required a decent amount of focus on my part. Not that there were lots of questions, but because I wanted to explain what they were to be doing and ensure they understood the instructions. When I'd do activities like this, I'd record the time I spent not working and completed that work later in the evening.Some of the things we did over the last 90 days together: learning to ride our bikes, take falls and watch for traffic; learning the importance and fun of planting fresh fruits & vegetables -- side note, I now have watermelons literally hanging off my fence; we raced RC trucks, completed a few iPad learning apps; spent entire days swimming, at the amusement park or water park; beat Lego Marvel Avengers for the WII U without my assistance; mastered MineCraft to the point it confuses dad how they are actually THAT good; went on picnics, to the movies & a road trip to Lake Erie.Monday, my 6 year old starts 1st grade :'(Tuesday, my 5 year old daughter (formerly step-daughter) starts Kindergarten :''(Wednesday, my 4 year old goes back to Pre-K :'''(To be completely honest though, it wasn't really the money that had me keep them home. In the back of my head, I always remember how it felt growing up to have a dad that didn't talk to you or try to relate, would spent the hours after you got home from school somewhere else, who never said I love you and who never did anything with you. I never wanted my kids, if I had any, to ever feel like that. Then, in 2009 my 1st born son died from complications post-surgery to repair a congenital heart defect... When I finally started waking up from that daymare in 2013, I swore to never waste a moment with those I love. I don't think I wasted a single one this summer. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2o8MtZq