Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Philadelphia, PA

So, did you survive Spring Break? No? Me either.

Our daugher only spends nine hours a week (three mornings from 9am to Noon) at preschool, but those nine hours are a LIFESAVER (especially when I have Savvy Source Parenting Philadelphia columns to write, heh). Not only was my daughter's preschool closed all week last week for Spring Break, they are also closed today for Easter Monday. What the heck is Easter Monday?

We tried to find a babysitter to come to the house last week, but the young woman we hired called out sick the first two mornings and then decided to not show up today. ARG. Finding reliable babysitters seems to be incredibly difficult, so I thought I'd post a few local and national resources to help. Please offer any suggestions you have in the comments section as well!

Craig's List. This awesome free classified service is a great place to put an ad for a sitter. We've used it successfully; last summer when our daughter's preschool was closed we were able to find a woman that was a Philadelphia-school-district music teacher looking to keep herself from being "bored" for the summer. For a whopping $75 a week, she came and played with our daughter three mornings a week. It was wonderful. Sadly, it's not 100% reliable as that is where we found the sitter that no-showed today as well.

Sittercity. Complaining about our sitter situation on Twitter lead me to this awesome site that came up with over 12,000 babysitters in my "immediate" area. The greatest feature is that the sitters are screened by the site! We are planning to use this site to find someone for this summer.

Sitterfinder. Similar to Sittercity, this site is slightly easier to navigate, and lists babysitter's rates right up front. That is pretty awesome.

Other than using my mother or my best friend, it really is challenging to find someone you can trust with your children. What do you do?