What’s the difference between finding a gopher in your yard and finding childcare for your 3-month old?

You can't drown the nanny-manny-fee-fi-fo-fanny if you don't like her/him. (That's going to get some complaints.)

Argh – first of all after two years of living in our house and making the back yard our own with blood, sweat and tears, we have a gopher. And although I know there are many different options available when it comes to taking care of the little varmints, I really can't resort to shaping C-4 explosives into friendly little park animals. I did try to run the hose into the hole and let loose the water, but that didn't do anything except create a swimming pool.

At least the little bugger is keeping the trench right along the edge of the grass and the patio. Rodentia Symmetrica. Nice.

But that's the least of our worries right now. Right now we're looking for childcare before my wife goes back to work in January. We thought we had a franny lined up (friend-like nanny), but that's falling apart now faster than the global economy.

So, we're looking at in-house infant care, nannies, local infant daycare, robot care, virtual reality daycare and even a potential family option.

But what to do? There are political ramifications with the family option, but there are so many other unknowns with the other options using services like Care.com, SantaCruzKids.com or calling listings off of Craigslist, or checking with our friends local networks/churches. We've got so many calls to make and interviews to schedule and waiting lists to wait on and gopher mounds to sit on. (Schizoids and freaks, we do check references.)

What to do? We're scrambling now; the hose is on full blast.

Queue the music…

"I'm all right, don't nobody worry about me…"