So as you know I was forced to leave my 12 years experience in stay-at-home momdom last year in favor of working, for like the first time ever (almost). I blame the republicans (JK, had to get a punch in somewhere).
My children left the safe haven of homeschooling for *gasp* public school. That went alright, aside from the first few months of middle school (please see earlier posts from January/February).
Now, I've hit #2 on my never do list, day care. It's been going great, for the first week anyhow. Train wants to "go to school every second and every minute of every day!" and Mister Giggles, well, the first thing he does in the morning is grab his backpack and try to escape out the door yelling "GO COOL, BYE MOMMY!"
So why did they end up in daycare all of a sudden, after I've been working for a year? BTW, Happy Anniverary Target, since you didn't wish me one first ;P
Jason and I managed to work swing shifts until he started working at Publix HQ and I got my promotion and transfer to a new store. My neighbor had helped out over winter break so we hired her to watch the boys while the girls went to school, 7am - 2pm, 4 days a week.
All was well until the last few weeks. I could see she was getting more and more stressed and then school let out and she had my kids on top of her own 2. Really, she only had Train, Tornado and Mister Giggles cuz the other 2 stayed at home. ANyhow, I digress..
Her kids got off for the summer and I think it was just too much for her. In one week she managed to bring the kids to me at work and expect me to take them, even though I was AT WORK. She slapped Mister Giggles and her son kicked him. She told my 10 yr old to "get the H*** out of my F*&%*$^ house" when she went over for lunch. And she asked me for $3 more dollars an hour because she's now watching Tornado too, and believe me, Tornado is not a problem (and I cannot believe I'm saying that, those who have known her from day 1 know exactly what I mean!!)
Oh yeah, and last week her husband (who doesn't work in town) was home so he let Jason and the kids in. When Jason left he put on cartoons and went to bed. I tried all morning to call the sitter, finally at 9:45am I had Miss Death Ray Eyes go to the house and ask sitter to call me because G was sick the day before and since I go to work at 4am I wanted to make sure he was ok.
Sitter calls back 10 minutes later and sounded like she was sleeping. She denied it, but when the kids got home Tornado told me they were both sleeping until MDRE came over, and they didnt eat breakfast until then.
In other words, she left my 6, 4 and 2 yr olds ALONE in front of the TV for 3 HOURS!!!!
Yup, YOURE FIRED.
And that's how I came to break my Things I'll Never Do Rule #2. And I'm happy about it.
She called me at least 4 times to apologize, ask for her job back, whine about how she can't pay her bills. I'm so frustrated with her. Every single day I give her enough food to feed my kids AND her kids (and her!) breakfast (including milk), lunch and 2 snacks...why? Because I'm nice. She told me she needs more money because she takes my kids out to eat and sometimes uses her own food and that's expensive. Um, that's why we agreed I'd provide food. I started giving her food for her own kids because I was sick of hearing "well, L wanted to eat what your kids were eating". Aye. I'm too nice.
And, in the end, daycare is saving us about $30/wk in babysitting fees and even more in food costs.
With some trepidation I utter a small "yay". Happy the kids are happy, but sad that things have had to change so drastically over the past 2 years, from fat cow to starving cow. Lesson learned.
Miss Universe and Train poking a sea urchin @ Daytona Beach.
MDRE before her sports banquet and first ever middle school dance.
